Great Disappearances

[Graham]

Nungesser & Coli

By the sheerest coincidence I was reading about L'Oiseau Blanc only last week. It seems that there were possibly reliable sightings of an aircraft floating on the ocean off the coast of Maine, and shortly afterwards a lobster fisherman hauled up some metallic wreckage. This he handed over to the Coastguard, and it eventually reached France where it was subsequently lost.

There were also (apparently) sightings of an unknown aircraft flying over land in Maine, and again a report of a crash, but no wreckage has ever been found.

There's more on the TIGHAR website (the organisation that's spent $$$ searching for Earhardt and Noonan's aircraft) and they appear confident that the aircraft will one day be found.

L'Oiseau Blanc was a modified Levasseur PL4 freightplane, and it was designed for the trans-Atlantic flight to have an undercarriage that dropped off on take-off, allowing the aircraft to touch down on water using the (huge) empty fuel-tanks for flotation. They figured that an undercarriage or floats would produce too much drag and affect fuel-consumption.

The idea was to touch down in New York Harbor thus fulfilling the conditions of the Oertiga (spelling?) Prize which stipulated a non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Alcock & Brown (1919) crossed the oceanic Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland, not between pre-specified points. Lindbergh was the first to that and survive.

Graham

[PaulB]

David Lang never existed.
The "Star" losses are explicable, and Star Dust has been found.
The Norfolks' fate is know too.

[Harry D]

Can't believe you included Atlantis. There's no archaeological evidence for it and it's not geologically plausible that were was any such sunken continent. Plato was using allegory to expound his political ideas, possibly inspired by Minoan civilization.

[Mayerling]

Can't believe you included Atlantis. There's no archaeological evidence for it and it's not geologically plausible that were was any such sunken continent. Plato was using allegory to expound his political ideas, possibly inspired by Minoan civilization.

Hi Harry,

I seem to recall that while Plato's story may be being used for allegory (in "Critias" I believe), there have been studies and archeological work about the destruction of a volcano at Thera / Santorini in the Aegean, which may have helped destroy the Minoan Civilization about 1400 B. C., and may be the germ of the loss of Atlantis - if that is the explosion or the site. Others have, of course, suggested the site should be in the Atlantic Ocean.

Jeff

[Chris]

To my mind, the mystery of Atlantis has been convincingly solved:
http://www.atlantismanisa.com/ingili...en_Kingdom.pdf

Just to say again that I'm convinced by Peter James's argument that the legend of Atlantis was inspired by the destruction of the city of Tantalis in Lydia.

[Mayerling]

Just to say again that I'm convinced by Peter James's argument that the legend of Atlantis was inspired by the destruction of the city of Tantalis in Lydia.

Hi Chris,

I did not read the interesting cite you gave until just now. It does offer an alternative to the "Thera" solution. Thanks for bringing it and the book to our attention. It reminds me too that Hittite sources have been used to back up the theories about the siege of Troy - which leads to another question about the site at Hitterlik, and which of the "Troys" uncovered is th one from Homer's "Iliad" (if any are).

Also, what are the present whereabouts of the so-called "treasure of Troy" Schliemann claimed he found in his diggings.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

David Lang never existed.
The "Star" losses are explicable, and Star Dust has been found.
The Norfolks' fate is know too.

Hi Paul,

I feel Lang did not exist either. I first came across his fate in a book by Frank Edwards, who many students of mysteries feel liked to tell a good sounding story whether it was true or not.

What is the "Norfolk Regiment" story about?

When was "Star Dust" found - no jokes about Hoagy Carmichael please.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

I just looked up "Star Dust" and find it was located in 1992. I had not heard that - the plane got lost and ploughed into a snow covered mountain when it mistakenly (apparently) was going down for landing at what they thought was the airfield.

Star Ariel and her other sister ship have not been found.

The interesting thing about the recovery of Star Dust's wreckage (and even the identification of some of the victims) was due to the melting of the glacial ice involved, due to global warming - similar to the luck with the discovery of HMS Erebus.

[PaulB]

Star Tiger had a flight plagued by problems, the weather was not good, and if it missed Bermuda it had insufficient fuel to go elsewhere. Star Ariel is equally explicable, but I forget the details. I, too, missed the report of the Star Dust until Stewart Evans drew my attention to it.

[Tom_Wescott]

Paul,

Your book on the Mary Celeste is awesome.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[PaulB]

Thanks Tom.

[GUT]

David Lang never existed.
The "Star" losses are explicable, and Star Dust has been found.
The Norfolks' fate is know too.

G'day PaulB

Do you mean the "Norfolk Regiment".

What did happen to them, I've never seen any convincing answer. I know that at one stage the Turks were asked, just after the war I think, know that a military historian claimed that they had simply been decimated in battle, but his work was not really persuasive [though there may be other work I haven't seen].

[PaulB]

Hi
They were shot. The bodies were dumped in a ravine, from where they were recovered after the war. I covered it in a Fortean Times article and my book Into Thin Air. There was another book about it which accompanied a TV drama. I'll try to get some more details tomorrow.

[Mayerling]

G'day PaulB

Do you mean the "Norfolk Regiment".

What did happen to them, I've never seen any convincing answer. I know that at one stage the Turks were asked, just after the war I think, know that a military historian claimed that they had simply been decimated in battle, but his work was not really persuasive [though there may be other work I haven't seen].

Hi GUT,

I take it this disappearance/massacre was in some engagement in the First World War between the British and the Ottoman Empire (it's not at Gallipoli, I feel, but during the Mesopotamian River Campaign disaster possibly?). Otherwise it is some incident that was covered up during the Crimean War that Britain and the Ottomans (then allies against Russia) had to cover up together. Please explain it to me.

Jeff

[GUT]

G'day Jeff

The story goes that in 1915 in Turkey during the Gallipoli Campaign some NZ soldiers on scout duty saw a company from the Norfolk Regiment march up a Hill shrouded in mist and cloud.

As they marched into the cloud they disappeared from view.

As the last of the company entered the mist it rose, leaving nothing to be seen they had simply, if you accept the account of the Kiwi's, vanished.

After the war the British asked the Turks if they were prisoners or had been taken in battle, the answer was no.

It has been claimed that they were taken in battle, one account claims by the Germans another by the Turks, however if the NZ soldiers are to be believed this seems impossible the lifting cloud would have had to reveal something.