A few things have happened recently in MH370 world that are worth taking note of.
No FMT. The seabed search in the southern Indian Ocean is all over but the shouting, and as a result I see that a consensus is forming that there could have been no “final major turn” into the southern Indian Ocean. Rather, if the plane went south, it must have loitered somewhere beyond the Malacca Strait until after 18.40 before finally flying a straight southerly path from 19:40 onward. This loiter, following a high-speed dash across the Malay Peninsula and up the strait, is quite bizarre, given that no attempt was made by anyone on board the plane to contact the ground, either to ask for help or to negotiate a hostage situation. So the presumption of a loiter doesn’t really shed light on motivation, it does effectively put yet another nail in the coffin of accident/malfunction scenarios.
More of the secret Royal Malaysian Police report released. Mick Rooney, aka @airinvestigate, has released a portion labelled “Folder 6: Audio and Other Records.” The new section contains an expert report analyzing the cockpit/ATC audio up to 17:21, which concludes (with less than 100% confidence) that it was probably Zaharie who uttered the final words “Good night, Malaysia 370.” It also includes ACARS data and the Inmarsat logs which had already been released back in 2014. In perusing the document I was not able to identify anything that would alter our collective understanding of the case, but I hope that others will offer their own assessments. And I applaud Mick for being the only one with the moral backbone to release this information. I am sure that more will follow. UPDATE: The next batch is here: “Folder 5: Aircraft Record and DCA Radar Data.”
Debris trail goes cold. I’ve plotted, above, the number of pieces of debris that have been found each month since MH370 disappeared. After the first piece of debris was found in July, 2015, a smattering of further pieces was found until April, May, and June of this year, when the number spiked and then dropped off again before ceasing altogether. This is a puzzling distribution, since drift models show that the gyres of the southern Indian Ocean act as a great randomizer, taking things around and around and spitting them out after widely varying periods of time. Would expect, therefore, to see the number of pieces found to gradually swell and then fall off again.
There is a complicating factor to this assumption, of course. Even if the pieces do arrive in a certain pattern, overlaid on top of this is the effect of an independent variable: the degree to which people are actively searching for them. It must be noted that a considerable amount of the June spike is attributable to Blaine Alan Gibson’s astonishing haul on the beaches of Madagascar that month. Indeed, Gibson by himself remains responsible for more than half of the 22 pieces of debris found thus far.
Earlier this week, several frustrated family members announced that they would be organizing their own beachcombing expedition, to take place next month. If their efforts prove less fruitful than Blaine Alan Gibson’s, it may raise questions as to what exactly was the secret to Gibson’s success.
@buyerninety
I’m not anywere yet with any conclusion.
As you linked it is possible a piece drifts around for 9 months in the Mozambique Straight for nine months without even beaching. This has significance in its own right.
But then a piece beaching within 30 minutes while a man walks along a beach, who allready found 16 out of 22 pieces of confirmed and unconfirmed debris, on almost the exact same spot where another piece was found the day before by someone else is made credible by the link you posted?
There is no reason to be at least sceptical?
I guess this will take time to sink in.
IMO we are not here posting to believe what we wish to believe.
I don’t wish to believe something awkward is going on with these latest finds.
But the facebook comment Jeff posted forces me to be a bit suspicious and quite sceptical.
…the debris trail looks analogous to the Inmarsat tracking miracle. Whoever tried to ditch the plane in the SIO, never expected satellite pings data to tell the story of generally where the plane went.
And now, whoever decided to ignore the debris tracking and collection step, never expected volunteer searchers and archive satellite data to begin to tell that missing story.
@TBill
The confirmed debris finds, from which only one has been found by Blaine Gibson.., indeed are analogous with the Inmarsat data.
The wide range of confirmed finds and their time frames from Reunion, Madagascar and Mauritius to Tanzania Pemba Island and Mosselbay South Africa give an indication analogous to the general crash area the DSTG had calculated before any debris was found.
The latest drift analysis with the confirmed debris, show they were 5 to 10 degrees too far south IMO. Without those debris and later data a remarkable accomplishment.
Blaine Gibson’s ‘No Step’ piece is the only confirmed piece out of 16 he found (17 by now) that officialy contributed to this changed perceptions. He is in the picture all around but these are the facts without judging his intend or effort.
If all planned the pilot would have expected that debris would occure and would be found someday. But then he would have known it would be almost impossible to find the location where he crashed the plane only from those debris finds.
But he then underestimated the resiliance, dedication and intelligence of a lot of people including the NoK (for all) to find this plane and the answers on what happened.
@buyerninety:
“@DennisW: No point telling them not to go there. They’re already there:
FantasyLand Fantastica”
Your quote seems to be a good description of the whole cover-up of what really happened to flight MH370. Everything smelled bad about the conflicting info being dished out by the authorities over the first few days. The kicker for me that little of what we had been told about the fate of the plane was real was when about three weeks after this bombshell was dropped – officials announced that the last words from the cockpit of MH370 before it disappeared from civilian radar were actually ‘Good night, Malaysian three seven zero’ not ‘All right, good night’ as Malaysian authorities had previously claimed.
This was just one of many small trivial unexplained changes to the official narrative. However, the original statement was indicative that whoever was in the cockpit was unfamiliar with routine ATC radio communication protocols and it could have been a subtle signal from one of the pilots that a hijack was taking place.
And there was nothing, nothing at all. Blaine Gibson then walks past and like magic a piece of debris is sitting there waiting to be found.
Is he planting them himself? He takes one of the young friends he has with him on all his beach combing trips. I believe parts are being transported in Blaine or his friends bag.
And each time this happens there just so happens to be a journalist nearby to interview Blaine. How convenient.
Blaine is seeking fame. If the media are not reporting MH370, Blaine creates a story. Blaine went to Australia, arranged for a few journalists to be there and told them his story about him holding a piece of debris in his hands which came from the cargo hold. A fire had occurred in the cargo bay because the piece of debris appeared scorched. ASTB didn’t confirm Blaine’s claims but Blaine managed to get his face in the newspapers again.
Fame hungry. I will eat my words if I am wrong.
@Kaz Lee, I found this story from the Guardian interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/05/mh370-search-families-of-passengers-to-comb-madagascar-beaches-for-clues?CMP=share_btn_tw
Are we to believe that he walked up on a girl fanning a fire and, lo and behold, she happened to be fanning it with a piece of MH370? Instead of any of a billion suitable small, light, flat objects that exist in the world?
I am troubled by this idea that residents of this region are so materially impoverished that they would eagerly size on any scrap of material that comes their way and put it to immediate use—to incorporate into a shelter, to burn for fuel, to fan a fire with, or to use as a washboard. In fact I find this idea rather bonkers.
I question the fire fuel value of these debris items …
@Kaz Lee
“Is he planting them himself? He takes one of the young friends he has with him on all his beach combing trips. I believe parts are being transported in Blaine or his friends bag.”
The flaperon and wing flap are a bit big to fit in a bag, and neither one can be carried by a single person. Both are confirmed to be from 9M-MRO. You might want to rethink your theory.
But most pieces after the Flaperon and flap have been small interestingly I suppose more or less after he met with Australia and USA officials.
@Jeff Wise I think what this blaine man is doing is right better than you are sitting there jugde ing people and the 370 team for planting the debris. You don t know noting you are some bunch of assholes who think that standing behind a fucking screen gonna find the plane or you don t want to.
What a ridiculous notion that Mr Gibson, or anyone, would plant this debris.
Sounds like sour grapes to me, from a man who wrote a book claiming that MH370 is buried in Kazakhstan and does not wish to admit he is wrong so simply comes up with further preposterous claims to ensure the royalty cheques keep arriving.
@DennisW
You’re right. And those 3 pieces are not found by Gibson. They are also the only with certainty confirmed 9M-MRO pieces.
From the other 5 ‘almost certainly MH370 pieces’ only 2 were found by Gibson.
So out of the 8 pieces that really matter now, only 2 have been found by Gibson.
I think this puts things more in perspective. The majority of the most important pieces are not connected with Gibson.
He can find another 16 pieces but if they can not be confirmed belonging to MH370 they are virtualy useless anyway. Regardless if there is faul play or not.
One way or another this latest miraculous Gibson find casts doubts if you like it or not. His ‘burned piece’ casted doubts earlier also IMO.
It turned out it was not burned but there were 3 burned spots on it that still smelled burned (after 2 1/2 years in the ocean).
The ATSB suggested those burned spots were inflicted on the piece recently.
I realize (and most I think) it’s dangerous to put Gibson’s integrity on the line but I think it’s important these doubts are mentioned.
The NoK are undertaking a very difficult emotional search.
They deserve unquestioned results. And for that to happen they also have to be sceptical and alert. Which often is difficult with emotions going on, which could make them vunerable to wishfull thinking and deceit.
Mr Wise, your outrageous allegations, insinuations, confabulations and imaginations are getting rather tiresome not to mention, as always, in very poor taste. Tell me, what is your real agenda here? Fame? Defame? Insane? Seriously, your speculation belongs where a speculum goes. Show some respect to those effected by this tragedy even if unable to show any to yourself or your profession.
@James, Yes, we are going to find the plane.
I find it extremely interesting that, on the tail of merely describing Blaine Gibson’s one-in-a-billion miracle find (or, conversely, a blatant act of planting) a bunch of unknown people come out of the woodwork to attack me. I seem to have touched a nerve.
During the last two and a half years (closer to three now) I have been constantly pressured to refrain from expressing opinions, or pointing toward facts, that don’t fit with what has somehow come to be seen as the acceptable narrative.
I was ridiculed for saying that the acoustic pings did not come from MH370’s black boxes. I was proven right.
When I warned the IG that the seabed search might fail and they’d better come up with a plan B, they kicked me out. But I was right and they were wrong.
When the flaperon turned up on Réunion Island, I was the only journalist or independent investigator in the entire world who bothered to take a closer look at the biofouling, and found that the distribution of Lepas barnacles was not consistent with natural flotation. Though it’s hardly received any attention, I was proven right on this, too, in the secret French reverse drift modeling report.
(BTW, DennisW, if the flaperon was planted, then ipso facto all of Blaine’s pieces are planted, too.)
So for all you people who respond to my reporting and commentary by saying “How dare you!”, my answer is, “I dare because I am earnestly working to find this airplane, and if I were to stick to the acceptable channels of inquiry that would never happen.”
The truth of the matter, as I see it, is that the mystery of MH370 is not actually all that opaque. What’s hard is getting people to accept that this case is fundamentally different from anything that has ever happened before, and that to understand it they will have to broaden their understanding of how the world works.
BTW, Given that the Russians were able to hack the US election to help get their stooge into the White House, and the fact that they waged an elaborate and successful disinformation campaign after deliberately shooting down another Malaysia Airlines 777, it takes an astonishing failure of imagination to be unable to comprehend that they could be behind MH370 as well.
What certainly makes it harder is the toxic fog of trollery and disinformation that hangs so thick over this case — and over MH17, and the Donbass, and Syria, and Brexit, and Trump. We (by that I mean the West) are under attack, and the object of attack is our system of discourse itself. The forum of free speech has been poisoned. Somehow we have to figure out a way to keep pressing forward.
@Ge Rijn
“One way or another this latest miraculous Gibson find casts doubts if you like it or not.”
I actually spent some time looking at that. I have a different interpretation, and that is that the piece was there all along if you consider the beach and nearby sea shelf as a single system. The piece probably alternated between the sea and the beach under the action of the tides. The fact that a piece had previously been found on that beach would certify that location as a debris “attractor”, similar to the sandbar where Gibson found his first piece. Gibson simply came across it while it happened to be on the shore, and not in the nearby sea. It is certainly not a one in billion or one in a million singularity as your model of reality might seem to suggest.
@Jeff
The correct interpretation of the ISAT data is that it does not constrain the terminus without additional constraints being imposed (typically flight dynamic assumptions). Your view of the data has been binary – it either points to the current search area or it is incorrect. That view is flawed.
Your scenario fails to align with any of the primary pieces of information we have:
1> ISAT data
2> debris findings
3> sim data
Frankly, it (your scenario) died the moment the flaperon was verified, and it is simply no longer tenable.
@DennisW
I expressed my opinion about it.
It’s certainly not meant to discourage or discredit this NoK search effort.
They are doing a wonderfull, difficult, important job which deserves all support.
But support in this case can also mean supporting them to remain cautious and sceptical about every find by anyone, Gibson included.
Their work is too important not to have this attitude.
They are free to take expressed doubts and opinions here or else into concern or not.
@Sher Kean:
Get a full grip on the whole picture regarding Jeff Wise’s contributions and efforts or I suggest you go elsewhere for your cheap thrills. There are different ways do approach a person and his views.
@Jeff:
It is my belief that the stooge was put there by the American people.
@Ge Rijn
“I expressed my opinion about it.”
So did I. Mine just happens to differ with yours, and I explained why. People can make up their own minds.
@Jeff Wise:
“…We (by that I mean the West) are under attack, and the object of attack is our system of discourse itself…”
Yes, the web has changed everything. Historically the global propaganda machine was almost the sole property of western political and commercial interests – think BBC World Service and Comcast et al. Now any country, or even an individual, has potential global reach by using the internet to deliver what ever message they want to influence the perceptions of their audience.
Regarding hacking, here is a list of the top countries for which the source of hacking has been identified – China, USA and Turkey. These three countries account for >60% of the total. There are no easy fixes to stop this happening, unless we are willing to curtail computer use for communication and further erode free speech.
I think it could be a good thing to take a step back from this Gibson character. I don’t think he is that important within the bigger picture. Of course it makes sense to air skepticism about his finds from time to time, and remind posters here that one will have to wait for analysis to have proof of fact. But I don’t think we need to question the results of these analyses. And one will apparently need patience before these arrive.
But it could be a good thing to let Gibson have his fifteen minutes of fame if it gets people to the beaches and gives them both hope and inspiration and a sensitivity concerning where to look and where pieces washed ashore earlier may have ended up. It is a learning process. And assumedly many kids and yourh will be the ones with time and interest to roam the beaches and coastline in many places. It would of course be of even greater value if search efforts were made on a larger scale, but on the one hand, 2.75 years have passed and the coast in question is immense, so getting funding, attention and serious interest could prove hard. And search efforts can probably not be executed in and around people’s homes. Dialogue and presence is not to be underestimated as grease to accomplish something, and the Malay RMP won’t necessarily either want or be able to incite inspiration among anyone at any level.
If Gibson has an alternte//private agenda it might be tolerable or will be known sooner or later. Hopefully someone in a coordinating position will see what areas or what uses he is not good for and have others cover these. In addition, the RMP won’t necessarily be able to work friction free with groups of the NoK, so an intermediary might be just fine. Have a little faith. Nothing is definitive before a forensic analysis anyway.
@Boris
“think BBC World Service and Comcast et al.”
Think WSJ as well, but in more subtle ways. For example, it is against the editorial policy of the Journal to publish any graphic in which time is not the horizontal axis i.e. price of something vs time. The reason for this is that an XY (in which neither X nor Y is time) graphic invites the reader to draw a conclusion. The Journal editors believe it is their privilege to draw conclusions for you.
The WEB is a very good thing IMO. It by-passes the stranglehold the media has had on the dissemination of information.
@Jeff Wise
We’ve seen this before ofcourse. Emotional driven attacks or trolls trying to disrupt the discussion.
First ones missed the context of a long periode I suppose.
For then they would have known quite some contributors here are very critical sometimes (often in fact;) on your views and opinions.
Or just right out oppose them.
They would know you give a lot of room for this different views and opinions as long as more or less sensible arguments are kept to be used.
I regard this as the strenght of your blog.
So keep up the good work.
@James
You blew it, it was too contrived. Maybe the next time you will get it right.
@Sher Kean
Perhaps the “confabulations” are yours, clearly the lack of respect is
@Ge Rijn, Thank you.
@TBill
My recent participation in the MH370 discussions, for what it’s worth, are inspired by Blaine Gibson. I was inspired by his finding of the “No Step” piece and his humble and, at that time, cautious “scientific” approach (e.g. being careful not to claim the first piece was from MH370 without further review). I lost a little confidence when the burned piece of unrelated trash was hyped to be possible proof of a fire on board MH370.
But due to the past failure of MY to show any interest in Blaine’s debris finds, perhaps Blaine should be forgiven for temporary loss of objectivity.
I don’t think we should make Blaine the “Richard Jewell” of MH370. Richard Jewell was the hero of the Atlanta Olympics bombing, who was unfortunately incorrectly accused of doing the bombing himself, such that his heroic actions were not appreciated.
@TBill, You’re right, we should not assume that Blaine is guilty. But neither should we assume he’s innocent, either. While the mystery is unsolved we should accept the ambuigity and attempt to resolve it using evidence.
I am very suspicious of people who say, “You cannot question this.”
Blaine and Yvonne have been very aggressive about trying to stifle any questions about the provenance of the debris. I find this questionable in itself. Anyone is free to have their own opinion, but I don’t have any patience for those who say, “He is a good man and you insult him by raising such possibilities.” He has eagerly made himself a public figure and is worthy of scrutiny.
@DennisW, the attitude “the discovery of the debris settles the question once and for all” is only valid if one is content to accept all evidence as given. It was the attitude that the official investigators took towards the BFO data as well, and it is that attitude that allows scammers to fool their marks.
@Jeff
“It was the attitude that the official investigators took towards the BFO data as well…”
Actually, I agree with you there. There was no one on the team that understood oscillator physics very well, and it is still being misunderstood today IMO, as evidenced by analysts running around computing mean and variance values. That and the notion you have expressed often yourself “what is the probability that a straight path satisfies the data and could be wrong?” The answer to that question is the same probability as a more loosely fitted path that happens to be correct.
My preference is to seek explanations that account for all the information that is not reasonably dismissible.
1> ISAT
2> Debris
3> sim
A Northern path would require ALL these things to be discarded. Do you really expect anyone to buy into that?
@Johan
Wise comment. We can think anything about Gibson and his mission, own agenda or not.
Still he has become the MH370 ‘Indiana Jones’ by being the only one traveling the world for ~2 years now, searching for clues and debris on possible locations.
He inspired others and NoK with his determination one way or another.
Perceived fame can be tempting though and screw up your mind forcing you to do things you know are not right.
Anyway I agree Gibson is not that important in the overall picture.
The 3 definitely confirmed 9M-MRO finds are not connected with Gibson.
And out of the other 5 ‘almost certainly MH370 pieces’ only 2 were collected by him.
And these 8 are the only ones that really matter till now IMO.
The 14 other pieces found are still useless in this regard.
But like you suggest, take it for what it is. He’s inspiring and motivating those NoK which has great value in its own right.
And I have some trust in those NoK, after all they’ve been going through, they will be sceptical and critical about everything that happens there.
@Ge Rijn
Well, I don’t feel any scepticism, because I haven’t heard any
reason why the finds of MH370 pieces by Mr Gibson are not within
the boundaries of possible probabilities.
You had a comment about close(?) found pieces that was a bit difficult
to understand – but consider, if there were two close found pieces,
isn’t it more probable that they were in fact one piece that simply
came apart due to waves breaking near the beach?
One part found, the other part nearby but still in the water, until it too
washes up completely, to be then found a bit later. (Where’s the pictures
of these pieces?)
Incidently, I have no trouble believing a piece of hard composite from
MH370 could be (successfully) used to fan a fire. Wood burns, plastic melts,
fibreglass fumes toxify you and light, thin metal bends eventually (if it
doesn’t burn your fingers first).
Space age composite, as hard as Carbon Fibre and fire resistant – why not?
@DennisW; “…the piece was there all along if you consider the beach and
nearby sea shelf as a single system.”…””The piece probably alternated
between the sea and the beach under the action of the tides.”
Add into the consideration numerous sandbanks along that coast, which a
piece has to clear to get into the beach circa zone – once in however,
the sandbanks can act to keep a piece from leaving out to sea, if it got
blown, thrown or swept into the surf again.
___________
Speaking personally, if I was looking for MH370 pieces, and I was
Ghislain Wattrelos, I’d visit, or ask the French Govt to have a search
done of the beach zone of Europa Island and Juan De Nova Island
(Saint-Christophe), and pay to have someone do a few days sweep of the
rim & interior of Bassas da India atoll (which are all French posessions
in the Mozambique Channel (and they have Wiki pages).
(The drift drogue in the webpage I cited previously, approached close to
all these places.) They are all uninhabited, aside from an occaisional
visit by fishermen, and an Amateur (‘Ham’) Radio expedition on 29 MAR to
11 APR this year to Juan De Nova. http://www.juandenovadx.com/en/
@Boris Tabaksplatt
My comment in relation to Fantasy related solely to the notion that people
are planting pieces of a 777 on the coasts of Indian Ocean countries.
There is zero evidence of that.
________
(Although I don’t want to get into your theory, I will note on only this
specific point –
it has never been a proven fact that Malaysian authorities used the
english words “Alright, Goodnight” in any report. Malaysian officials
in China provided to the Chinese NOK a translation into Chinese of
communications with MH370, which (according to UK tabloid ‘The
Daily Telegraph’) Chinese NOK provided to The Daily Telegraph, who then
translated that into English and then printed it, with that phrase.)
@buyerninety
All you say is possible.
But the coïncidence this happens after almost 3 years within 2 days with 2 finds at almost the same spot, within a 30 minutes walk where there was first nothing and then on the way back there was also a piece found by someone who had allready found on his own 16 out of 22 pieces (!?) is not suspisious and statistically outrageous?
Come on. Stay sceptic as you do all the time.
@DennisW,
1> ISAT. The Inmarsat data was generated by a piece of equipment that had been altered in a way that rarely occurs in the course of normal operation. Seems to me that it was likely tampered with. Especially given that much of the BFO data doesn’t make sense, knowing what we know now. (i.e. that the plane isn’t in the seabed search area.)
2> Debris. If the Inmarsat data is tampered with, it would be a no-brainer to plant pieces of debris after the fact to create the illusion that the plane went down in the SIO. It seems to me that the evidence was not even planted well: the biofouling revealed inconsistencies that should have raised more suspicions. Almost all of the debris found after that is clean as a whistle–a fact that would be troubling if anyone had the slightest inclination to look at the evidence with an open mind.
3> Sim. Again, I see a rush to judgment by those who wish to declare case closed. Yes, the final two sim points certainly raise important questions, and demand further investigation. But there is also significance in the fact that not a single other shred of evidence has been found to implicate Zaharie.
@Jeff
1> ISAT. The BFO data is consistent with what I expected. Because others had different expectations is not a condemnation of the data.
2> Debris – I spend 50% of my time living on a beach. i see a lot of debris. Biofouling is the exception rather than the norm. In any case the biofouling or lack thereof is in the realm of the anecdotal. Planting of debris is just beyond my ability to digest.
3> Sim – very damning in and of itself. Whether other “evidence” points to Z is in the eyes of the beholder. Again, “Goodnight Malaysia 370” is a worthwhile read in this regard.
@Jeff Wise
I have to argue the only way the debris could have been planted was to drop hundrerds of selected debris pieces in the ocean shortly after the Inmarsat-data came available into a possible crash area according this data.
There’s no way all those individual pieces of debris were planted.
IMO the whole ‘planted scenario’ is an unnecessary/impossible complicated scenario given all the now available evidence and data.
The Inmarsat-data and the latest drift data are not conflicting but more or less confirming each other. The debris bio-fauling is not settled yet as you probably know.
The data and evidence is shifting the crash area to the north-east now.
This is what the facts and data are telling us.
Despite Gibson’s adventures or our opinions of it.
@Jeff, @Ge Rijn:
I didn’t know Gibson had been aggressive or defensive. That of course suggests he is dependent on the income or at least has not the proper perspective on things. Jeff you are of course right in that he has made himself a public figure and that he will have to stand critique. No one is beyond that, not even or especially not those who make a living as saints. And it is true that things suggest that he is pushing things, although also some of the hope put in the pieces he has found may have been disproporttionate. I guess there is hopes of attention and funding in there somewhere for Gibson, and someone like that will of course have to be monitored.
I think we will have to accept, though, that the debris situation will be a bit messy, like relics after the apostles. We can’t seal off the East coast of Africa and half the Indian Ocean and make it a crime scene. There will be attention seekers and manipulated pieces and all kinds of things. It is to be expected. We will probably have to be happy with what we get and try to make the best of it.
@Ge Rijn: Thanks (I think 🙂 )
@Jeff: I am sure you get a lot more of more or less rude comments inside and outside the blog that you filter away. Probably with time-consuming answers to the senders. I just want you to know that we (I, but others too I know) appreciate greatly the effort you put into this and what you have accomplished. There is hardly (not as far as I know) anything near to this accumulation of knowledge anywhere else. Which is open to discussion and comment. You deserve all the praise you can get.
Likely the items on the California beach not bio-fouled were likely recently discarded garbage. Most items from the Japanese tsunami coming ashore on the west coast North America had significant bio-fouling. It would seem those debris items found by the NOK group were recently placed in the ocean.
There are not hundreds of debris planted.
Items that have been in the ocean for months are not crystal clean.
It would seem only a small number of debris pieces were strategically placed to be found , not hundreds like @Trond says, but maybe under 50.
@DennisW:
I am leaning a little more lately towards your view that esp. the sim point deep into SIO is to be regarded as damning in and of itself. If not planted there of course (by someone with quite good knowledge of this sim). I have a little more faith in that it is understood in the right way technically and user-wise although I find it worth some caution that it was still there at all, while not much else evidently was.
Speaking of driftwood: Dylan is a no-show at the Nobel festivities. Patti Smith is representing him. She is now chatting away with dinner neighbours in tail-coats and ribbons at the 1300 dinner-guest banquet. Bet she didn’t see that coming 30 years ago. They’ve just been served the main course. Dylan is present in his abscence and the producer rolls a spot with his compressed bio.
If you are not watching… 🙂
@Johan
No broadcast TV here. Dylan was a surprise, but I agree with the choice.
Some “debris” pictures from the beach house. I am currently sitting in the mud at the ranch working (not very hard) on a number of small issues.
http://tmex1.blogspot.com/2016/12/biofouling.html
@Ge Rijn
I’d like to comment, but I have not seen the words of the
exact report you’re drawing the description of events from.
16 of 22? Well, Gibson was the only person actually looking
continuously.
Credit to Liam Lotter, and the two gentlemen down near Mossel Bay,
Dr. Schalk Luckhoff & Neels Kruger – those finds were somewhat
serendipitous, compared to Gibsons ‘look at every bit of junk, ask
where stuff comes ashore, go everywhere the bank balance will allow’
approach.
“Almost 3 years”. – Maybe we should see how long it takes drifters
to get to the Mozambique Channel. Also how long they’ve stayed there,
(although once in the Channel, some would probably be picked up by
fishing boats.)
Here is location data from NOAA for drifters that were in the
Mozambique Channel.
Drogue=0
fromDate=1979/02/15
toDate=2016/06/30
northernEdge=-11
southernEdge=-25
westernEdge=34
easternEdge=48
ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/od/pub/envids/metadata_gld.20161210_065311.zip
ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/od/pub/envids/interpolated_gld.20161210_065311.zip
Is it Google Earth I should view this with, or some other program?
Cheers
Your pictures proves nothing. The logs could have been there for years. And you don’t know for how long they were in the ocean. And you say it gets picked clean. By who?
@Trond
“And you say it gets picked clean. By who?”
Birds mostly.
I walk these beaches a lot, and the story is the same. I did not cherry pick the pictures.
BTW, I never claimed the pictures proved anything. The whole notion of biofouling is anecdotal at best unless you encounter the debris very soon after it washes ashore. Very soon in this context means a matter of a few days.
@Trond
I added a picture to my link for your benefit.
It took me seconds to Google and find out that birds do not eat algea and microorganisms. So again your article proves nothing.
@DennisW:
My daughter would love those logs.
For a skeptic to the Nobel Prize in Economy (I know) I can at least say that contract theory (winner this year) is not a bad thing. And it seems to fit exceptionally well with this year’s Colombian Peace prize laureate. Peace is a contract (or better be) so it would fit any year of course.
Dylan’s letter to the guests will be read by someone in a short while.
Speech by physics prize laureate now. Quantum mechanics. Topological matter.
It seems that debris has been on shore and sun bleached. Not compatible
@Trond@MH
Trust me when I say I am not at all concerned about proving anything to either of you.