Could anything every turn up to convince us?

[GUT]

But to dig 'em up you need a Court order (or the Ministry of Justice) just can't see one issuing, without a lot more.

[Clownwings]

Yes, it would need the families of the victims involved, and a pretty decent argument that they were hoping to finally give those ladies some peace.

As an Australian, I thought you might find this article interesting. Ned Kelly was identified through DNA 130 years after his death despite his body being buried in a mass grave, exhumed, buried in another mass grave and exhumed again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14742311

[Fisherman]

To the original question, I think the answer may be very different if we answer it both in terms of "I" and "we." I can see myself some day being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt by new evidence, a powerful argument, or some combination of the two. But as a whole, we will never agree on his identity. In fact, the stronger the argument, the stronger the resistance to it seems to be.

You just covered it all in a few short sentences, Barnaby.

[GUT]

A big issue, is what standard of proof to you want.

Are you:

It sounds good to me

More likely than not

Beyond doubt

Historically it's consistent

or something else?

[Fisherman]

A big issue, is what standard of proof to you want.

Are you:

It sounds good to me

More likely than not

Beyond doubt

Historically it's consistent

or something else?

Should not that "beyond doubt" be "beyond reasonable doubt"? Otherwise it is genuine proof.

[GUT]

Should not that "beyond doubt" be "beyond reasonable doubt"? Otherwise it is genuine proof.

Well beyond reasonable doubt and beyond doubt are, beyond doubt, different things, and yes there is no reason that can't be added among the "or something else" I wasn't trying to list all the options. Hence the final alternative.

[Fisherman]

Well beyond reasonable doubt and beyond doubt are, beyond doubt, different things, and yes there is no reason that can't be added among the "or something else" I wasn't trying to list all the options. Hence the final alternative.

Okay, Gut. What must be given some afterthought too is how markers like "more likely than not" will be used differently by different people. When somebody says that something is more likely than not, it´s time to prepare for others saying that it is the other way around...

[Mayerling]

First, I'd like to be known to hope that something of real substance turns up to mark a "finis" to this case. It would be emotionally satisfying if it did.

Second, I have to admit I'm pessimistic if that will ever happen. It is rare for an old mystery to be solved decades or centuries later, by evidence turning up. Usually the evidence just generates other unresolved questions - so the hunt continues for a "final point".

Vacher was mentioned earlier. No there is no website here for him - maybe in France - but I did discover two decades back that a movie based on his career starring Philippe Noiret was made and that it suggested Vacher should have been put into an insane asylum, but for political motives (to take public attention away from the concurrent Dreyfus Case) Vacher was adjudged by an "expert" (Noiret) to be legally sane so he could be guillotined. So he still retains some fascination (as does Henri Prazini given the recent discussion on these boards).

I'm sixty one and two thirds years old as of this month. In those years I can think of four partial solutions to various mysteries (one of which was recently questioned on this board):

1) The discovery, identification with DNA, and burial of the remains of King Richard III (this was the one that was questioned - look at the thread "King Richard and the Car Park").

2) The recovery of the remains (in 2000) of the Everest climber George Mallory, who with his companion Andrew Irvine was last seen in 1923 seemingly approaching the summit of that mountain. As I said, Irvine's remains are still missing as is a valuable camera that may show if Mallory reached the peak and thus beat Tenzing Norkay and Sir Edmund Hillary to the top by three decades. They are still looking for the camera and Irvine's body.

3) The discovery of the wreckage of the steamer Portland, lost in a terrible snow storm in 1898 (ever afterwards referred to as "The Portland Gale") with no survivors. Now it is protected as a sea life preserve. They did find that the superstructure had apparently been totally ripped off in the gale, explaining the total death toll of about 200 souls.

4) The finding last year (in Canadian Arctic waters near King William's land) of HMS Erebus, the lead ship of the pair (with HMS Terror) sent under command of Sir John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage in 1845. They had last been seen in 1846 and then vanished. Now that the Arctic tundra is warming alarmingly, the wreckage was finally located, but has not been closely examined yet to help explain why the expedition was wiped out, and where is Sir John's corpse (many think it was left on the flagship or it was buried on land).

But there are still plenty of undiscovered or unrevealed mysteries:

1) What was the fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan in 1937?

2) Was the destruction of the "Hindenburg" just due to an accidental ignition of the hydrogen gas or (as a movie and several books contend) an intentional bomb plot?

3) What happened to the ill-fated Florida based Flight 19 in 1945?

4) What exactly sank the "Waratah" in 1909? Where did it sink off South Africa's coast?

5) Going back a bit, who was the Man in the Iron Mask? Was it Eugene Dauger? Why was he punished the way he was?

6) Did Meriwether Lewis (of the Lewis and Clark expedition) kill himself at Grider's Mill, Tennessee, in 1809, or was he murdered?

7) What happened to British diplomat Benjamin Bathurst in Germany in 1807?

I can keep on going about this - there are hundred of mysteries that we haven't solved, and few get the luck of the four I earlier listed that were partially solved. Besides those four the only other two I can add (and one is not really a mystery except for details) are the finding of the wreck of the RMS Titanic by Dr. Ballard in 1986, and the 1930 discovery of the remains of the Swedish Polar aeronaut Salomon Andree and his two companions on White Island by Russian sailors. And the exact cause of the death of the three men (trichinosis from bad Polar Bear meat, exhaustion, asphyxiation from a defective stove flue in their tent) has never been settled to everyone's satisfaction.

So I remain pessimistic - wish something really big was revealed, but keep knowing it will only lead to further questions.

Jeff

[belinda]

No. Nothing that turned up would ever convince everybody

[JadenCollins]

No. Nothing that turned up would ever convince everybody

Indeed, it's been 127 years, nothing will ever convince us, we'll always find a way to prove it wrong.