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fallen-gravity · 7 years ago

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A Mother’s Love

here’s my super super late submission for @moana-party ! My prompt came from @raptor-moon!

The prompt: “ Te Fiti just got royally pissed off at someone.”

Funny story, actually! This piece was originally going to be much longer, and it was going to follow a bit of a different story, but after I’d been working on it for a while and took a break to talk with @crab-child, I came back and realized that this little chunk of what originally very well could’ve ended up being 3k words or more actually kinda worked as its own shorter story!

I hope you enjoy! :D

For as long as they’ve been around, Te Fiti has always loved humanity.

She created them, after all. The love she carries for each individual human is unlike that any other deity could even consider claiming they have. While every God and Goddess in the pantheon is fascinated by the small, intelligent creatures Te Fiti created to occupy her islands, that’s just about as far as their love went. Fascination. They were often discussed in hushed whispers like their daily lives were nothing more than entertaining games. They observed the humans relentlessly, but often carelessly. To them, humans were fun.

To Te Fiti, they were so much more than thoughtless entertainment. The love she felt for humanity, in fact, could only be described on human terms. Her love was motherly, and her love was gentle. She observed each individual human as carefully as she was allowed to. She listened to their hopes and dreams, and when they were desperate, she listened to their prayers. She helped them when she could, either directly or indirectly, and other times she would simply push them in the right direction. Whether they were ever aware of her presence, no matter how direct or spiritual, she does not know.

But of everything she’s observed in the thousands of years she’s watched over humanity, nothing has warmed her heart more than when she’s observed them taking care of one another. The elderly watching over small children while their parents are out on fishing or short voyaging trips. Adults assisting the elderly who have difficulty getting around on their own. She’s even observed young children looking out for their younger siblings or friends of similar ages.

Humans are strong. They’re the most adapted species for both the land and the sea. They don’t need companionship. If desired, they could survive on their own without the assistance of anyone else. But despite this, despite the fact that they’re aware they’re able to survive on their own; they still choose to rely on each other regardless. They choose to start or find their own families. They raise their own children from birth to adulthood. They help them grow strong, and healthy, and they never let them out of their sights.

Te Fiti loves humanity because they are so full of love.

As far as she’s concerned, it’s all they’re capable of. Created purely from her own love, it wouldn’t surprise her at all if that’s what carried over to them in the largest amounts.

The thought makes her smile.

---

It’s thousands of years later when Te Fiti realizes she couldn’t have been further from the truth if she wanted to be.

She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t believe it. She wouldn’t have believed it, in fact, had she not witnessed the entire thing herself.

It started with the sounds of a baby wailing. So loudly, in fact, that Te Fiti could hear it all the way from her own island. It’s probably more likely she could hear it because she could hear any individual voice if she listened for it, but this particular child was weeping so loudly it would not surprise Te Fiti if its cries could be heard from all over its own home island. It was enough to wake Te Fiti from her slumber, so she arose to assess the situation herself.

When she arose, she was met with a sky glimmering with stars and a full moon. At first, Te Fiti assumed it to be a child waking from a nightmare, or because it was hungry, and she was prepared to let the child’s parents take care of it.

But the child sounded so afraid, and so helpless, and by the incompetent babbles coming out of its mouth as it shrieked, Te Fiti could only assume the sound was coming from a newborn, born a mere minutes or hours prior.

That’s what alerted Te Fiti to observe the island directly. Never, in her millennia of watching over humanity, has Te Fiti ever heard a newborn shriek so helplessly.

When she finds what she’s looking for, she finds a mother and her newborn baby. The mother’s hair is so long it nearly drags on the ground behind her, and her bangs cover both of her eyes, rendering the woman indistinctive. In her arms she holds a wriggling infant, screaming so loudly that his tiny voice is cracking and he’s turning red in the face. He’s much, much smaller than any other human baby Te Fiti recalls ever seeing, and whatever his mother is doing he’s clearly not happy with it.

The mother brings her newborn to a high cliff overlooking the water. Placing the baby gently down on the ground, the woman takes the sharp tool Te Fiti had failed to notice she’d been holding in her other hand and holds it up to her head. Te Fiti recognizes the tool as one humans typically use to husk coconuts, but the island goddess notices no such fruit anywhere near this mysterious long-haired woman and her newborn baby.

But before Te Fiti can even begin to wonder what intentions this woman could possibly have with such a tool with no food to cut open in sight, the woman slices it clean across the back of her head, and a good portion of the woman’s luscious curls falls to the ground beside her baby. Kneeling down to gather it, Te Fiti observes curiously as the mother begins to wrap her newborn son in the lock of her hair that she sliced off. The motion doesn’t stop the infant from wailing, but it eases his uncomfortable squirming immensely.

The woman stands. And just as Te Fiti is ready to dismiss the case as an infant who was unusually fussy about the cold weather the nights often brought, and the mother sacrificing her beautiful curls to help warm her infant, she instead steps closer to the edge of the cliff as opposed to away from it. She takes one final glance at her infant son, his own head already fuzzy with his own set of curls impressive for an infant his size.

And then she does the impossible.

The inconceivable.

The most….horrifying, disgusting thing Te Fiti has ever witnessed any being do in her entire millennia of existence. Mortal or immortal

The woman takes her child, her infant child, who couldn’t have been alive for more than a single day, and she tosses him into the sea without a single trace of regret in her body language or her expression. There are no hints of hesitation, of shaking arms that mean she didn’t wish she had to do this, and no twisted grimace on her face or tears streaming down her cheeks.

Nothing. She’s completely blank, like…like she wants to do this.

The woman doesn’t even stay to make sure he makes it to the bottom of the cliff. She simply turns around, and walks back to her village without making another sound.

To say Te Fiti is would be an understatement. Before the infant even touches the water, as soon as he’s out of his mother’s arms, Te Fiti calls to the ocean to keep him safe.

Catch him gently. He’s small. I don’t want him harmed.

Keep him afloat. Even his mother’s sturdy hair may not be enough to keep him above the waves.

Make sure he doesn’t swallow any saltwater. His lungs may not be fully developed yet. He was only born today.

Today.

Why? Why would anyone do this to their newborn son? What could a baby like he possibly could have done for his mother to throw him away as if he were nothing? How could a human, who she’s only observed to be selfless and loving, act so cruel and heartless? There have been countless humans in the past who have prayed for children to have on their own. She’s seen couples lose children less than a year old to illnesses they were too young to fight. She’s seen couples who are unable to have any children at all, no matter how badly they want them or how hard they try to have them.

How could a mother, someone Te Fiti thought to be so full of love be so…so heartless? Towards her own child?

She tried putting sympathy on the mother. Really, she did. She tried coming up with just about every excuse she could think of for a mother to abandon her own child so thoughtlessly, but nothing she came up with ended up making any sense. Even with her hair covering most of her face, Te Fiti could tell by the woman’s body language that she was an older woman. So she clearly was not a teenager trying to hide a secret from her parents. She did not appear like she was using him as a sacrifice to the gods, because neither the woman nor the child were properly prepared for one. The most reasonable explanation Te Fiti could think of was that his mother assumed he was too sick to survive through the rainy season anyway, but Te Fiti found major gaps and flaws even in that story, for though the infant was small, and perhaps born a bit too early, his loud, piercing wailing indicated strong lungs. Even if he were sickly, he was strong, and appeared as though he easily could’ve survived to the next season.

She didn’t want him.

Te Fiti hated to admit it, but it was the only explanation left that she could think of. This poor infant’s mother tossed him into the sea simply because she did not want him.

Fine.

If she doesn’t want him, she doesn’t deserve him. End of discussion.

And if she didn’t want him for his small size, if she was ready to give him up so easily the day she received him, then who’s to say what any other mother would’ve done to him? If he was given up for his size, something he has no control over, then it’s possible that any mother would’ve done the same to him.

Nobody deserves him. None of those humans deserve him.

Te Fiti sighs sharply, and if it weren’t for the dark night sky playing tricks on her vision, she could swear she wear exhaling black smoke.

Just before the infant lands safely in the ocean’s waiting gentle grasp, Te Fiti asks of it one final request.

Bring him to me.

#moana #moana exchange party #paper scraps #WHAT CAN I SAAAY EXCEPT I'M SHAMELESSS #of course I'm gonna admit I took a break just to talk to My Boy can you b l a m e me #also @Tai thought you might like to be tagged in this too so #here you go! :DDDD #anyway I'm so so sorry this is so late #due date just happened to be on my LAST DAY OF FINALS and i had three papers due on the same day that week #so #:')

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howtohero · 5 years ago

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#275 Meeting Your Heroes

As a superhero you’re going to doubtlessly be interacting with a lot of high profile individuals. Heads of state, pop stars, cool aliens (lame aliens too if you’re into that). You’re a high profile individual, they’re high profile multiples, it just makes sense. Being bathed in radioactive battery acid is the best way to meet the people you look up to. But just because you can meet these people, does that mean that you should? Ehhhhh, honestly it might be better not to.

This can’t be the first time someone has told you to never meet your heroes. We just happen to be the most recent, (and the most handsome {and the smartest}) but it’s a cliche because it’s true. We tend to idolize those we look up to, putting them on up pedestals and holding them to standards they can never truly live up to. (Listen, we get it, sometimes you literally need to put your hero on a pedestal in order to activate a hidden door to a secret treasure room in an ancient temple to Floon that contains all of the powerful objects you need to repel the latest alien invasion. It happens. But in all other circumstances you shouldn’t be putting people on pedestals.) Superheroes are often very flawed, they solve most of their problems with lightning punches and toxic spit for goodness’ sake, they’re probably going to let you down. So, in order to save yourself from immense disappointment you need to do anything you possibly can to avoid meeting your heroes.

A disappointed superhero is an unproductive superhero. We can’t have you sitting around moping and questioning everything you stand for when their are alien banshees and soda-fueled imps to fight. So, to completely avoid any potential existential crises stemming from tying up too much of your identity in the values of an idealized version of some superhero that you pretty much completely made up in your head, you should simply have no heroes. Whenever you encounter or become aware of a new superhero you need to immediately dig for as much dirt as you possibly can you never run the risk of respecting them. Find their old tweets, search for embarrassing vlogs they’ve made, uncover the secret of the horrifying time they lobotomized a supervillain to turn them into docile vegetable. The quicker you lose faith in these heroes, the more pain and disappointment you’ll be able to shield yourself from in the future, and the more people you’ll be able to help in the long run.

But oh no! What if, while exhaustively researching and digging into these heroes you discover that they have no embarrassing dirt. What if they legitimately seem like a standup guy or gal or non-binary fellow! Then it should be fine to fanatically fall in love with them right? No! Of course not! (Come on man that’s the whole thing! {What are you an idiot?}) Nobody can be perfect forever, they’re going to screw up eventually. I mean, think of all the times you screwed up. (And yes, the time you threw a busload of orphans at a giant treeant obviously counts. It doesn’t matter that they were invisible orphans so you didn’t know they were on the bus.) You screw up every day. You’re about to screw up by hero-worshipping this guy. Everybody screws up eventually, so you’d do well not to get too overly invested in anybody.

At a certain point it’s just going to make a lot more sense to close yourself off from the rest of the superhero community. If they say you should never meet your heroes then you need to supernever meet your superheroes. So go ahead right now and block every superhero from your phone. Kick out your superhero roommate. Punt your child sidekick off of a roof (onto something soft, lest this be the big mess up that disillusions the people who idolize you!). Quit all your teams and disown your superhero family and cancel your plans to pick up your superhero buddy from the moon. Starting now you are off the superhero grid. Don’t even show up to super battles where there are already other heroes and if another hero shows up to stop a crime you’re already stopping you need to get out of there immediately. Even if it means the bad guys are gonna get away with some crimes. This is about making sure you’re in the right headspace to stop future crimes.

But sometimes it is simply unavoidable. Sometimes there’s going to be a hero that is so great and so perfect and so unproblematic that you’re going to make them your hero. And sometimes they’ll also be so local and so accessible and so friendly that you end up meeting them. I know, I know, this is a real worst case scenario situation. It’s almost too horrible to think about. But we need to prepare you in case this happens.

The odds are good that upon meeting this supposedly perfect individual, you’re still going to be disappointed. I’d even go as far to say that they’re probably still a jerk. So you’ve met this person, they’ve disappointed you, you’re spiraling, you’re completely losing your grip on reality. If your hero is bad then are bad people good and is the sun the moon and are crabs coconuts? Everything is upside down! But don’t lose hope, you have the power within you to right the ship. In truth, in the grand scheme of things, a person’s message and their legacy is far more important than the actual person is. Even if they end up letting you down what you believed in still exists, in theory. What they stood for is still out there. All you need to do is ensure their heroic legacy remains untainted, and you need to do this by stealing their identity.

If you’re meeting with your superhero hero and you realize that they don’t live up to your imaginary standards for them just straight up knock them out, steal their clothes and then steal their life! Listen, nobody is ever going to live up to your expectations for them, nobody that is, except for you. Live their life the way you believe they should’ve been living it all along. And if that seems especially daunting to you, don’t worry! It’s not for forever. It’s only until somebody else decides that you’re not living your hero’s life correctly and steals the identity for themselves! And on and on and on it will go until everybody is truly the hero the world wants them to be!

#superhero #superheroes #comics #comedy #humor #funny #hilarious #comic books #superhero guide #meeting your heroes #treeant #invisible orphans #Floon #identity theft #stealing someone's identity #crimes #macguffins

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wflinches · 5 years ago

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[Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart?

– Icepop

Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart?

Sunday 01 September 2019 03:31 AM UTC-05 | Tags: amelia-earhart discovery expedition fred-noonan innovation island kiribati missing-plane mysteries mystery nikamuroro plane-crash robert-ballard south-pacific titanic

The Fateful Smudge

It happened purely by chance. In 2012, an expert in forensic analysis of photographs took a better look at a photograph of a remote South Pacific island, nearly 80 years old. What others had previously seen as a smudge on the photograph and ignored, he suddenly concluded was something far different.

Getty Images/Bettmann

He ran with his theory to his boss — and news of the stir he had caused raced all the way to the Pentagon. It was a piece of landing gear, sticking out of the waves. What it could indicate reignited international fascination with solving one of the greatest mysteries of the modern world: the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

Vanishing Into Legend

The disappearance of famous aviator and flight pioneer Amelia Earhart shocked and horrified the world in her time. Now, more than three-quarters of a century later, it remains notoriously, glaringly unsolved. For the achievements that Amelia made in her short lifetime, she had already made a name for herself in the chronicles of history.

Getty Images/Bettmann

The mysterious circumstances surrounding her alleged demise catapulted her into legend status, and set a fire in the imaginations of generations of researchers, scientists, explorers, and conspiracy theorists. Just what exactly happened to Amelia and her plane on that hot summer night more than eight decades ago?

Going Against The Grain

From her childhood in the small city of Atchison, Kansas, Amelia was destined to be different from other girls. Despite the way society greatly restricted how a woman could act, dress, and work, Amelia’s mother encouraged her daughter to march to the beat of her own drum.

Wikimedia Commons

She did things girls just didn’t do back then, like shooting rats, sledding, and collecting bugs and reptiles. As a young woman visiting her sister in Toronto, she saw a World War I flying ace at an exhibition. He dove his plane towards her, probably to try and scare her — and it backfired, big time.

Entering The Pages Of History

Curious about planes, in 1920, she and her father went to an airfield in California, where another World War I pilot gave her a ride — and changed the course of history. Through her own determination, Amelia learned how to become a pilot. Inspired by Charles Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean, she decided she could do exactly the same thing — and succeeded.

Getty Images/Bettmann

On May 21, 1932, Amelia Earhart crossed from Newfoundland, Canada to Northern Ireland in 14 hours and 56 minutes, and became the first woman in history to fly alone across the Atlantic. But almost a decade later, she would enter the history books again, for all the wrong reasons.

Amelia’s Final Feat

After nearly a decade of incredible celebrity status, competing in contests and breaking records for women across the globe, Amelia Earhart decided she would undertake her greatest feat yet: flying around the entire planet in her plane, a Lockheed Electra 10E that had been designed especially for her.

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

In March 1937, she set off from Hawaii, but the plane crash-landed during takeoff. Unfortunately, Amelia was blamed for the error by some, and her radio operator quit the mission. That left Amelia with her navigator, Fred Noonan. After two months of repairs, they took off from Oakland, California — never to return.

Circumnavigating The Globe

After taking off from Oakland on May 20, 1937, Amelia and Fred crossed the breadth of the continental United States. They headed south for the Caribbean and Brazil, then crossed the Atlantic for Africa. In the course of their journey, they nailed yet another record, completing the first nonstop flight in history from Africa to British India.

Getty Images/Keystone/Hulton Archives

Next, the pair traveled through Southeast Asia, and across the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia. At last, they were set to begin the most difficult part of their journey: crossing the Pacific. They were supposed to return to California and complete their goal. Neither could have imagined what was about to happen.

Last Leg

It was midnight, July 2, 1937. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan took the Electra plane and flew off from Lae Airfield, Australian New Guinea. The pair were headed far away to Howland Island. They had been having radio problems, and neither Amelia nor Fred were skilled radio technicians.

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

The US Coast Guard Ship had dispatched USCGC Itasca to Howland Island, waiting for Amelia to arrive, and helping them navigate. The problem was, Amelia and Fred couldn’t find an accurate radio signal: her plane, the Electra and the Itasca were working at the wrong frequencies. Throughout the night, Amelia managed to get through several static-filled messages about overcast weather. It was what happened next that caused a radioman on the Itasca, in his words, to “sweat blood”.

Nearing Howland Island

At first, Amelia Earhart could hear the transmissions the USCGC Itasca was sending her, but by early morning, that stopped. The success of the last leg of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s journey was now jeopardized because of constant technical issues. The Itasca couldn’t properly tune in to the frequency of the Electra.

SDASM Archives/Flickr

The plane drew closer and closer. At 6:14 AM, Amelia and Fred reported that they were less than 200 miles away from their destination at Howland Island. Clearly, they were quickly approaching, as at 6:45 AM, Amelia said they were likely 100 miles away. But they had a huge problem: voice notes weren’t getting through.

Running On Line

The Itasca sent Morse code transmissions, which Amelia received, but couldn’t use them to figure out where she was. Between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, Amelia got several messages through, saying she couldn’t hear anything, and was running low on gas. Then, at 8:43, Amelia said, “We are running on line north and south.”

SDASM Archives/Flickr

That meant they thought they had reached Howland Island. They were wrong. The Itasca sent up boiler smoke to try and indicate their position. Nothing happened, and it’s possible that because of the cloud cover Amelia had reported, the smoke couldn’t be distinguished. The crew didn’t know it at the moment, but they had just received the last trace of Amelia Earhart’s existence.

The Search Begins

The radio silence was terrifying. An hour after losing touch with Amelia Earhart, the Itasca went into full emergency mode. The crew began searching for Amelia’s plane, to no avail. Hours became days, and the United States Navy joined the mission. No trace was found, no sign of a crash in the Phoenix Islands chain, near Howland Island.

Wikimedia Commons

An American battleship, the USS Colorado, was sent from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a last attempt to find Amelia and Fred. A plane launched from the Colorado found something intriguing on Gardner Island: signs of human habitation. There was just one glaring problem.

A Fruitless Search

By July 1937, Gardner Island, the suspected site of Amelia Earhart’s plane crash, had not been inhabited by humans for more than 40 years. As the American reconnaissance plane circled and zoomed low overhead, encouraged by the signs of human dwelling, they could not see anybody.

SDASM Archives/Flickr

Nobody waved for help, and the plane returned to the USS Colorado, empty-handed — but they estimated that the island could have been the perfect size for a landing. Millions of dollars were poured into the search effort, which lasted for months. On January 5, 1939, for all intents and purposes, Amelia Earhart was declared dead. Or was she?

Popular Beliefs

When it comes to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and their Electra plane, absolutely nothing is for certain. That being said, most experts and historians agree on one scenario. It is most widely believed that the cloud cover, low gas, and transmission problems all contributed to the plane’s demise.

New York Times Co./Getty Images

The widely-held consensus is that the plane crashed not far from their destination in Howland Island, and the two were either killed on impact or died shortly thereafter. Though this seems the most plausible explanation, as the mystery grew, new theories emerged — and some of them are absolutely mindboggling.

Theories Run Amok

Beyond the conventionally accepted theories, some of the ideas surrounding Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s disappearance into thin air run the gamut from possible to bizarre. World War II was just a few years away, and some believe Amelia was actually a spy secretly dispatched to gather information on Japanese positions in the Pacific.

Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

In that same vein, others believe they crashed on a different island, were captured by the Japanese, and taken to a prisoner camp, where they perished. Most ludicrous of all, among the wildest theories out there, some posit that cannibals found them, or that Amelia survived and returned to the US, living in secret as a housewife in New Jersey! But the scant few facts indicate something sharply different.

Nikumaroro

Most experts believe that Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro, was indeed the site of Amelia Earhart’s crash. This island, located in the present-day nation of Kiribati, is the place that the plane launched from the USS Colorado had circled back in July 1937.

Library of Congress/Getty Images

The island is frequented by coconut crabs, the largest crab species able to go on land, with claws that are strong enough to break open coconuts. Because of them, scientists have a diabolical theory: they think that if Amelia and Fred landed and died on Nikumaroro, the crabs ate them, leaving no trace. But something strange surfaced on the island.

Unidentified Bones

In 1940, a monumental discovery was made on present-day Nikumaroro: human bones. They were sent to a scientist based in Fiji, Dr. David Hoodless. As principal of Fiji’s Central Medical School. he analyzed the remains, concluding that they were 13 human bones, belonging to a male.

Getty Images/Topical Press Agency

The problem was, his forensics techniques were primitive and extremely outdated even for his own time. To make matters worse, the bones were then lost. From the few photographs that remain of them, modern experts are nearly certain that they belong to a female, of Caucasian descent, taller than average: Amelia Earhart. But believe it or not, it was not these bones that would be the most important clue yet.

Bevington’s Snapshot

To understand the context of what could possibly be the biggest clue in locating Amelia Earhart’s wreckage requires going back to when her disappearance was still fresh. In October 1937, just a few months after the Electra plane vanished, the search for her was still in full swing.

Facebook/TIGHAR

A British colonial officer called Eric Bevington arrived back on Gardner Island (today’s Nikumaroro), where the USS Colorado’s plane had found traces of human settlement. There, he saw the ruins not of a plane, but of an old British freighter that had floundered there years before. He snapped a picture — and unknowingly captured what could be the final clue needed to solve the 20th century’s greatest mystery.

A New Lead

Nearly 80 years after Dr. Hoodless in Fiji analyzed — and lost — the human bones from Nikumaroro, and Mr. Bevington took his picture on the same island, a forensic expert for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) spotted and digitally enhanced a smudge in the water in Bevington’s picture.

Instagram/imrie90

It was only a mere millimeter in the picture’s corner, but under further inspection, it was concluded that this smudge could in fact be a plane’s landing gear, belonging to a Lockheed Electra 10-E: the plane belonging to none other than Amelia Earhart. The team at TIGHAR had just one man in mind to get on the case.

Introducing Robert Ballard

Former US Navy officer Robert Ballard is one of the world’s foremost modern explorers. He has led missions that successfully found the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1985, the remains of the Nazi WWII battleship Bismarck, and dozens of other wrecks.

Underwood Archives/Getty Images(Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

As the president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, few can question his authority on the subject of finding wrecks undersea. Now, he would be picking up where TIGHAR had left off. Their team had even returned to Nikumaroro to look for Amelia Earhart’s plane once again, just before reaching out to Robert Ballard — but they ran into a huge issue.

A Clue In Aluminum

TIGHAR had led multiple searches on Nikumaroro Island over the years, convinced that they had pinpointed the location of Amelia Earhart’s crash site. In 1991, they had found an aluminum shred, 19 inches by 23 inches, which they think was wrenched from Amelia Earhart’s craft.

Facebook/TIGHAR

As proof, they point to a Miami Herald photograph of Amelia’s plane leaving for Puerto Rico on June 1, 1937, showing a shiny aluminum patch on the plane that had replaced a window. But despite all hopes, a 2012 voyage back to Nikumaroro proved fruitless. But this time, they had something truly exciting that they could count on.

Well-Stocked Mission

As one of the foremost names in shipwreck recovery, Robert Ballard has something the TIGHAR team had not used in their searches in the past: a far more vast array of technology at his disposal. In TIGHAR’s past missions around Nikumaroro Island, they admittedly did not have nearly the same budget that Ballard is working with.

The Print Collector via Getty Images

Ballard can use remotely-operated underwater vehicles and a series of cameras to gain a 3D map of the ocean floor near Nikumaroro. Having him on board is the best chance they’ve had yet to finally solving the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. So what does Ballard himself think?

Assessing The Terrain

Nikumaroro is a coral atoll, and at the edge of the island, the dropoff into the ocean is very steep, with incredibly deep trenches typical of the Pacific. It is roughly 10,000 feet down to the ocean floor. As there are no remnants of the plane on land on the island, Robert Ballard believes that if Amelia Earhart’s plane crashed here, it not only fell into the ocean.

Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

It probably also slid down into an abyss. If the plane had landed on Nikumaroro itself, potentially on the coral reef during low tide, then it would have been submerged by the incoming tide and carried away. So they launched a search.

Ballard In Nikumaroro

Ballard’s team searched Nikumaroro Island in August 2019. To carry out their mission, they split up into two squads: land and sea. The land crew looked around the sands and forest of the island, hoping to find any trace of habitation that could point to survival attempts from Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.

H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Whatever they would find, they would have to discern between actual original artifacts — especially bones — and the remnants of the failed British settlement on the western end of the island. The aquatic team scoured the waters. There is, however, one enormous problem that may have doomed their mission from the get-go.

Shattered

Though Robert Ballard is renowned for finding the Titanic, the circumstances of its sinking were markedly different from whatever theoretically happened to Amelia Earhart’s plane. The force of the Titanic striking the iceberg, while it sank the ship and tore it into pieces, would not have been the same as the impact of the Electra plane slamming into the coral reef, which would have utterly shattered it.

Wikimedia Commons

Because of the amount of time that has passed since Earhart’s disappearance, it is believed that the plane may not be all together at all. The ocean may have completely dispersed and scattered the debris. And the surrounding geography poses one giant challenge.

Beating The Odds

While Richard E. Gillespie, the head of TIGHAT, feels encouraged that his team finally have the impressive technology of Robert Ballard at their disposal, his position on the odds is decidedly less than optimistic. According to him, he believes that their likelihood of finding any trace of the Electra plane stands below 20 percent.

Wikimedia Commons

The geography of Nikamuroro Island is their foe: the coral reef stands at the top of a steep underwater mountain filled with caves and cliffs where it could have subsided. The area is known for landslides. The plane may have been not only scattered, but permanently covered. So what gives them hope?

Island Hopping

National Geographic filmed Robert Ballard’s expedition to Nikamuroro, scheduled to air as a two-hour special on October 20, 2019. Robert Ballard sent his ship to circle the island five times, mapping it with sonar. In a National Geographic interview, Ballard says that in the primary search site (where that smudge on the 1937 photograph had been), he could not find evidence of Amelia Earhart’s plane.

Wikimedia Commons

According to him, if the plane had been there, its fragments would be slowly sliding down the slope of the coral reef. But the search is not over: next, he’s taking his team to map the waters off Howland Island — where Amelia was supposed to land, before vanishing.

Sources: National Geographic, Daily Mail

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innovation

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from [Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? via [Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? September 01, 2019 at 08:51PM Copyright © September 01, 2019 at 08:51PM

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antioquiaabogados · 5 years ago

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[Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart?

[Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? – Icepop Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? Sunday 01 September 2019 03:31 AM UTC-05 | Tags: amelia-earhart discovery expedition fred-noonan innovation island kiribati missing-plane mysteries mystery nikamuroro plane-crash robert-ballard south-pacific titanic The Fateful Smudge It happened purely by chance. In 2012, an expert in forensic analysis of photographs took a better look at a photograph of a remote South Pacific island, nearly 80 years old. What others had previously seen as a smudge on the photograph and ignored, he suddenly concluded was something far different. Getty Images/Bettmann He ran with his theory to his boss — and news of the stir he had caused raced all the way to the Pentagon. It was a piece of landing gear, sticking out of the waves. What it could indicate reignited international fascination with solving one of the greatest mysteries of the modern world: the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Vanishing Into Legend The disappearance of famous aviator and flight pioneer Amelia Earhart shocked and horrified the world in her time. Now, more than three-quarters of a century later, it remains notoriously, glaringly unsolved. For the achievements that Amelia made in her short lifetime, she had already made a name for herself in the chronicles of history. Getty Images/Bettmann The mysterious circumstances surrounding her alleged demise catapulted her into legend status, and set a fire in the imaginations of generations of researchers, scientists, explorers, and conspiracy theorists. Just what exactly happened to Amelia and her plane on that hot summer night more than eight decades ago? Going Against The Grain From her childhood in the small city of Atchison, Kansas, Amelia was destined to be different from other girls. Despite the way society greatly restricted how a woman could act, dress, and work, Amelia’s mother encouraged her daughter to march to the beat of her own drum. Wikimedia Commons She did things girls just didn’t do back then, like shooting rats, sledding, and collecting bugs and reptiles. As a young woman visiting her sister in Toronto, she saw a World War I flying ace at an exhibition. He dove his plane towards her, probably to try and scare her — and it backfired, big time. Entering The Pages Of History Curious about planes, in 1920, she and her father went to an airfield in California, where another World War I pilot gave her a ride — and changed the course of history. Through her own determination, Amelia learned how to become a pilot. Inspired by Charles Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean, she decided she could do exactly the same thing — and succeeded. Getty Images/Bettmann On May 21, 1932, Amelia Earhart crossed from Newfoundland, Canada to Northern Ireland in 14 hours and 56 minutes, and became the first woman in history to fly alone across the Atlantic. But almost a decade later, she would enter the history books again, for all the wrong reasons. Amelia’s Final Feat After nearly a decade of incredible celebrity status, competing in contests and breaking records for women across the globe, Amelia Earhart decided she would undertake her greatest feat yet: flying around the entire planet in her plane, a Lockheed Electra 10E that had been designed especially for her. STAFF/AFP/Getty Images In March 1937, she set off from Hawaii, but the plane crash-landed during takeoff. Unfortunately, Amelia was blamed for the error by some, and her radio operator quit the mission. That left Amelia with her navigator, Fred Noonan. After two months of repairs, they took off from Oakland, California — never to return. Circumnavigating The Globe After taking off from Oakland on May 20, 1937, Amelia and Fred crossed the breadth of the continental United States. They headed south for the Caribbean and Brazil, then crossed the Atlantic for Africa. In the course of their journey, they nailed yet another record, completing the first nonstop flight in history from Africa to British India. Getty Images/Keystone/Hulton Archives Next, the pair traveled through Southeast Asia, and across the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia. At last, they were set to begin the most difficult part of their journey: crossing the Pacific. They were supposed to return to California and complete their goal. Neither could have imagined what was about to happen. Last Leg It was midnight, July 2, 1937. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan took the Electra plane and flew off from Lae Airfield, Australian New Guinea. The pair were headed far away to Howland Island. They had been having radio problems, and neither Amelia nor Fred were skilled radio technicians. STAFF/AFP/Getty Images The US Coast Guard Ship had dispatched USCGC Itasca to Howland Island, waiting for Amelia to arrive, and helping them navigate. The problem was, Amelia and Fred couldn’t find an accurate radio signal: her plane, the Electra and the Itasca were working at the wrong frequencies. Throughout the night, Amelia managed to get through several static-filled messages about overcast weather. It was what happened next that caused a radioman on the Itasca, in his words, to “sweat blood”. Nearing Howland Island At first, Amelia Earhart could hear the transmissions the USCGC Itasca was sending her, but by early morning, that stopped. The success of the last leg of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s journey was now jeopardized because of constant technical issues. The Itasca couldn’t properly tune in to the frequency of the Electra. SDASM Archives/Flickr The plane drew closer and closer. At 6:14 AM, Amelia and Fred reported that they were less than 200 miles away from their destination at Howland Island. Clearly, they were quickly approaching, as at 6:45 AM, Amelia said they were likely 100 miles away. But they had a huge problem: voice notes weren’t getting through. Running On Line The Itasca sent Morse code transmissions, which Amelia received, but couldn’t use them to figure out where she was. Between 7:30 and 8:00 AM, Amelia got several messages through, saying she couldn’t hear anything, and was running low on gas. Then, at 8:43, Amelia said, “We are running on line north and south.” SDASM Archives/Flickr That meant they thought they had reached Howland Island. They were wrong. The Itasca sent up boiler smoke to try and indicate their position. Nothing happened, and it’s possible that because of the cloud cover Amelia had reported, the smoke couldn’t be distinguished. The crew didn’t know it at the moment, but they had just received the last trace of Amelia Earhart’s existence. The Search Begins The radio silence was terrifying. An hour after losing touch with Amelia Earhart, the Itasca went into full emergency mode. The crew began searching for Amelia’s plane, to no avail. Hours became days, and the United States Navy joined the mission. No trace was found, no sign of a crash in the Phoenix Islands chain, near Howland Island. Wikimedia Commons An American battleship, the USS Colorado, was sent from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a last attempt to find Amelia and Fred. A plane launched from the Colorado found something intriguing on Gardner Island: signs of human habitation. There was just one glaring problem. A Fruitless Search By July 1937, Gardner Island, the suspected site of Amelia Earhart’s plane crash, had not been inhabited by humans for more than 40 years. As the American reconnaissance plane circled and zoomed low overhead, encouraged by the signs of human dwelling, they could not see anybody. SDASM Archives/Flickr Nobody waved for help, and the plane returned to the USS Colorado, empty-handed — but they estimated that the island could have been the perfect size for a landing. Millions of dollars were poured into the search effort, which lasted for months. On January 5, 1939, for all intents and purposes, Amelia Earhart was declared dead. Or was she? Popular Beliefs When it comes to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and their Electra plane, absolutely nothing is for certain. That being said, most experts and historians agree on one scenario. It is most widely believed that the cloud cover, low gas, and transmission problems all contributed to the plane’s demise. New York Times Co./Getty Images The widely-held consensus is that the plane crashed not far from their destination in Howland Island, and the two were either killed on impact or died shortly thereafter. Though this seems the most plausible explanation, as the mystery grew, new theories emerged — and some of them are absolutely mindboggling. Theories Run Amok Beyond the conventionally accepted theories, some of the ideas surrounding Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s disappearance into thin air run the gamut from possible to bizarre. World War II was just a few years away, and some believe Amelia was actually a spy secretly dispatched to gather information on Japanese positions in the Pacific. Topical Press Agency/Getty Images In that same vein, others believe they crashed on a different island, were captured by the Japanese, and taken to a prisoner camp, where they perished. Most ludicrous of all, among the wildest theories out there, some posit that cannibals found them, or that Amelia survived and returned to the US, living in secret as a housewife in New Jersey! But the scant few facts indicate something sharply different. Nikumaroro Most experts believe that Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro, was indeed the site of Amelia Earhart’s crash. This island, located in the present-day nation of Kiribati, is the place that the plane launched from the USS Colorado had circled back in July 1937. Library of Congress/Getty Images The island is frequented by coconut crabs, the largest crab species able to go on land, with claws that are strong enough to break open coconuts. Because of them, scientists have a diabolical theory: they think that if Amelia and Fred landed and died on Nikumaroro, the crabs ate them, leaving no trace. But something strange surfaced on the island. Unidentified Bones In 1940, a monumental discovery was made on present-day Nikumaroro: human bones. They were sent to a scientist based in Fiji, Dr. David Hoodless. As principal of Fiji’s Central Medical School. he analyzed the remains, concluding that they were 13 human bones, belonging to a male. Getty Images/Topical Press Agency The problem was, his forensics techniques were primitive and extremely outdated even for his own time. To make matters worse, the bones were then lost. From the few photographs that remain of them, modern experts are nearly certain that they belong to a female, of Caucasian descent, taller than average: Amelia Earhart. But believe it or not, it was not these bones that would be the most important clue yet. Bevington’s Snapshot To understand the context of what could possibly be the biggest clue in locating Amelia Earhart’s wreckage requires going back to when her disappearance was still fresh. In October 1937, just a few months after the Electra plane vanished, the search for her was still in full swing. Facebook/TIGHAR A British colonial officer called Eric Bevington arrived back on Gardner Island (today’s Nikumaroro), where the USS Colorado’s plane had found traces of human settlement. There, he saw the ruins not of a plane, but of an old British freighter that had floundered there years before. He snapped a picture — and unknowingly captured what could be the final clue needed to solve the 20th century’s greatest mystery. A New Lead Nearly 80 years after Dr. Hoodless in Fiji analyzed — and lost — the human bones from Nikumaroro, and Mr. Bevington took his picture on the same island, a forensic expert for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) spotted and digitally enhanced a smudge in the water in Bevington’s picture. Instagram/imrie90 It was only a mere millimeter in the picture’s corner, but under further inspection, it was concluded that this smudge could in fact be a plane’s landing gear, belonging to a Lockheed Electra 10-E: the plane belonging to none other than Amelia Earhart. The team at TIGHAR had just one man in mind to get on the case. Introducing Robert Ballard Former US Navy officer Robert Ballard is one of the world’s foremost modern explorers. He has led missions that successfully found the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1985, the remains of the Nazi WWII battleship Bismarck, and dozens of other wrecks. Underwood Archives/Getty Images(Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images) As the president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, few can question his authority on the subject of finding wrecks undersea. Now, he would be picking up where TIGHAR had left off. Their team had even returned to Nikumaroro to look for Amelia Earhart’s plane once again, just before reaching out to Robert Ballard — but they ran into a huge issue. A Clue In Aluminum TIGHAR had led multiple searches on Nikumaroro Island over the years, convinced that they had pinpointed the location of Amelia Earhart’s crash site. In 1991, they had found an aluminum shred, 19 inches by 23 inches, which they think was wrenched from Amelia Earhart’s craft. Facebook/TIGHAR As proof, they point to a Miami Herald photograph of Amelia’s plane leaving for Puerto Rico on June 1, 1937, showing a shiny aluminum patch on the plane that had replaced a window. But despite all hopes, a 2012 voyage back to Nikumaroro proved fruitless. But this time, they had something truly exciting that they could count on. Well-Stocked Mission As one of the foremost names in shipwreck recovery, Robert Ballard has something the TIGHAR team had not used in their searches in the past: a far more vast array of technology at his disposal. In TIGHAR’s past missions around Nikumaroro Island, they admittedly did not have nearly the same budget that Ballard is working with. The Print Collector via Getty Images Ballard can use remotely-operated underwater vehicles and a series of cameras to gain a 3D map of the ocean floor near Nikumaroro. Having him on board is the best chance they’ve had yet to finally solving the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. So what does Ballard himself think? Assessing The Terrain Nikumaroro is a coral atoll, and at the edge of the island, the dropoff into the ocean is very steep, with incredibly deep trenches typical of the Pacific. It is roughly 10,000 feet down to the ocean floor. As there are no remnants of the plane on land on the island, Robert Ballard believes that if Amelia Earhart’s plane crashed here, it not only fell into the ocean. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images It probably also slid down into an abyss. If the plane had landed on Nikumaroro itself, potentially on the coral reef during low tide, then it would have been submerged by the incoming tide and carried away. So they launched a search. Ballard In Nikumaroro Ballard’s team searched Nikumaroro Island in August 2019. To carry out their mission, they split up into two squads: land and sea. The land crew looked around the sands and forest of the island, hoping to find any trace of habitation that could point to survival attempts from Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images Whatever they would find, they would have to discern between actual original artifacts — especially bones — and the remnants of the failed British settlement on the western end of the island. The aquatic team scoured the waters. There is, however, one enormous problem that may have doomed their mission from the get-go. Shattered Though Robert Ballard is renowned for finding the Titanic, the circumstances of its sinking were markedly different from whatever theoretically happened to Amelia Earhart’s plane. The force of the Titanic striking the iceberg, while it sank the ship and tore it into pieces, would not have been the same as the impact of the Electra plane slamming into the coral reef, which would have utterly shattered it. Wikimedia Commons Because of the amount of time that has passed since Earhart’s disappearance, it is believed that the plane may not be all together at all. The ocean may have completely dispersed and scattered the debris. And the surrounding geography poses one giant challenge. Beating The Odds While Richard E. Gillespie, the head of TIGHAT, feels encouraged that his team finally have the impressive technology of Robert Ballard at their disposal, his position on the odds is decidedly less than optimistic. According to him, he believes that their likelihood of finding any trace of the Electra plane stands below 20 percent. Wikimedia Commons The geography of Nikamuroro Island is their foe: the coral reef stands at the top of a steep underwater mountain filled with caves and cliffs where it could have subsided. The area is known for landslides. The plane may have been not only scattered, but permanently covered. So what gives them hope? Island Hopping National Geographic filmed Robert Ballard’s expedition to Nikamuroro, scheduled to air as a two-hour special on October 20, 2019. Robert Ballard sent his ship to circle the island five times, mapping it with sonar. In a National Geographic interview, Ballard says that in the primary search site (where that smudge on the 1937 photograph had been), he could not find evidence of Amelia Earhart’s plane. Wikimedia Commons According to him, if the plane had been there, its fragments would be slowly sliding down the slope of the coral reef. But the search is not over: next, he’s taking his team to map the waters off Howland Island — where Amelia was supposed to land, before vanishing. Sources: National Geographic, Daily Mail Tags: amelia-earhart discovery expedition fred-noonan innovation island kiribati missing-plane mysteries mystery nikamuroro plane-crash robert-ballard south-pacific titanic from [Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? via [Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart? September 01, 2019 at 07:51PM Copyright © September 01, 2019 at 07:51PM from Abogados Medellin llama 320 542 9469 Colombia https://boston-massachusetts-02108.blogspot.com/2019/09/latest-news-icepop-did-man-who.html via [Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart?

#[Latest News] – Icepop: Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earha

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wareexami · 5 years ago

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– Icepop

Did the Man Who Discovered Titanic Finally Solve the Mystery of Amelia Earhart?

The Fateful Smudge

Getty Images/Bettmann

Vanishing Into Legend

Getty Images/Bettmann

Going Against The Grain

Wikimedia Commons

Entering The Pages Of History

Getty Images/Bettmann

Amelia’s Final Feat

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

Circumnavigating The Globe

Getty Images/Keystone/Hulton Archives

Last Leg

STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

Nearing Howland Island

SDASM Archives/Flickr

Running On Line

SDASM Archives/Flickr

The Search Begins

Wikimedia Commons

A Fruitless Search

SDASM Archives/Flickr

Popular Beliefs

New York Times Co./Getty Images

Theories Run Amok

Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Nikumaroro

Library of Congress/Getty Images

Unidentified Bones

Getty Images/Topical Press Agency

Bevington’s Snapshot

Facebook/TIGHAR

A New Lead

Instagram/imrie90

Introducing Robert Ballard

Underwood Archives/Getty Images(Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

A Clue In Aluminum

Facebook/TIGHAR

Well-Stocked Mission

The Print Collector via Getty Images

Assessing The Terrain

Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Ballard In Nikumaroro

H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Shattered

Wikimedia Commons

Beating The Odds

Wikimedia Commons

Island Hopping

Wikimedia Commons

Sources: National Geographic, Daily Mail

Tags:

amelia-earhart

discovery

expedition

fred-noonan

innovation

island

kiribati

missing-plane

mysteries

mystery

nikamuroro

plane-crash

robert-ballard

south-pacific

titanic

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