originally posted by Annette
I think we probably all know about this sad incident now, but what might not be known is how satellite technology these days can help in this type of search. Digital Globe provided some of their images for the Tomnod crowd source volunteers to search through and tag what they thought might be of interest to those out there searching for the lost plane. Whatever the most people tagged they then sent on the the correct authorities to be investigated.
Unfortunately due to the wide spread interest in this search, and many enthusiastic Tomnod taggers not being able to tell the difference between whales and their many splashy antics and actual debris or wreckage, the crowd sourcing method failed. And the searchers ended up chasing a lot of whale splashes and found nothing. Currently they are out there diligently cleaning the Southern Indian ocean of rubbish.
But that does not mean looking for wreckage with Tomnod failed, wreckage was found. The satellite with the right filters, can actually look below the surface of the ocean to see what is under the water. It will even apparently magnify what is down there to make it easier to spot. Unfortunately again there were problems, the one interesting map with recent wreckage was a quarter the size of Tasmania, most taggers would have given up before they ever saw the wreck, even if they could have spotted it, which was not that easy.
Now I have tried all sorts of ways to get around the need for a lot of people to tag this wreck in order to get the AMSA to look at it and have failed. I was told by them have no experts to look a picture of wreckage and will only consider it if Digital Globe tell them it is worth looking at. Digital Globe will only think it worth looking at if a real lot of people on Tomnod tag it as wreckage. All three are refusing to look at anything.
So here I am campaigning to have this wreck discovered. And I will post the info in a few locations. Just waiting for April Fools to be over to get things really started. I do not want to get mistaken for a prankster. But it is pretty quiet around here.
This is en enlarged photo of the main piece of wreckage. The gamma is also up a bit to more clearly show some lettering at the back and to the left of this bit.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/tomnod/Wreckenlarged_zps1fc824b 2.jpg~original
This is a screenshot of Google Earth showing where that map tile is. The co-ordinates are -43.970617, 92.789824 if you want to look your self.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/tomnod/map_zps81f3338e.jpg~orig inal
Naturally they are currently looking else where.
This is the map tile, on Tomnod.
(link removed)
You do not need to sign up, just wait for the map to load and click on the middle square, there might be a java script error, just click ignore it. You click on the little orange airplane on the left for the wreckage tag, click on the wreckage and then click the airplane symbol again to finish tagging, you can tag what ever you think is wrackage, there is other wreckage around that area, if you want to get enthusiastic. All of this wreckage is lying at the bottom of the ocean, nothing is on the surface.
This is what the wreck will look like on the map.
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j215/aussie500/tomnod/Wreckpleasetag_zpsefc499 1c.jpg~original
Please tag it as wreckage so Tomnod, Digital Globe and the AMSA can maybe think it worth while to investigate. The wreck was actually first tagged last week. So this could take a while to get any where. Please share the info where ever you think it might get a response, in what ever form you like.
And sorry Janny for using your message board as my personal soap box, hope you do not mind. It is for a good cause. If this is indeed what is left of flight MH370, it would be nice for all the relatives and friends to know where their loved ones ended up. And hopefully find out the truth about what happened to flight MH370.
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
I'm having a hard time distinguishing any of those objects with any degree of certainty, Annette, but I did tag the one you suggested. Seems like a good cause to me too, and I (with my uneducated eye, at least where satellite ocean bottom imagery is concerned) scoured about 100 of the squares around that area, just to see if I could teach myself to recognize nuance. Alas, thusfar I'm not a quick study, apparently; it all looks similar to me. What are those great cloudy areas?
originally posted by Annette
Thanks Mark.
If you want here is a link to most of my wreck map tiles outlined to make it easier to see. You might need to turn the contrast or gamma up a bit if your screen is a bit on the dark side.
http://s81.photobucket.com/user/aussie500/library/tomnod/MH370%20wreckage?sort=3 &page=1&postlogin=true
There was more there, even after that, and I misplaced a few map tiles. I am just waiting to see if I get a reaction from Tomnod. My post suddenly vanished, so hopefully they will do something this time. If not, well I will just send the links off else where till someone goes and checks the wreck.
I have not run out of options yet. There has to be a way to make them actually investigate the wreck they are meant to be looking for. It is never going to get enough tags to do it through crowdsourcing, most people cannot see it even if they could find it. It is like one of those Where's Wally pictures, it is in plain sight yet hard to see.
I naturally focused on that first piece because it was smooth and out of place down there, but it seems most cannot see it.
But I looked at a lot of map tiles, over 50K, so had a lot of practice. And I ran into that problem right on my first map, which was smooth water on a map where it was almost like solid ground. Roads, squares, buildings, it was not till it got to the decorative and intricate carvings I finally flipped and thought they were having me on. Worked out how to check where I was looking, sure enough it was water, there were ruins under there.
Now investigating those ruins would have been a lot more interesting. But they were not what we were looking for so I moved on, and forgot to keep a link to go back. 
originally posted by Annette
The clouds in the images are clouds in the sky if you mean the big white ones Mark. There are a couple of wisps of cloud around this area. The satellite is a long way up. It sees the world from above the clouds and in this case all the way down to the bottom of the ocean floor. This area is volcanic and has what I think you would call geysers under the ocean which spew up all manner of stuff. Some of the 'bubble streams' are them.
And some are not, a nuance for detail you do not want to acquire while looking at this wreck. I would not look any closer than you have, a nice safe ruin up north would be better to practice on.
originally posted by Annette
I wonder if my latest effort might have just been classed as an acoustic event. 
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
Well, the returns on the pinging seem promising, anyway, if "promising" is an appropriate term for something so tragic. 15,000 feet down, with a typhoon having stirred things up in between the disappearance of the plane and now, not to mention currents. I find it amazing that we can find this box after all of that.
originally posted by Annette
I do not see how sound waves in a deep trench due south and well over 2,000km away could be heard all the way up there. But then how light played around with the location was weird, so stranger things have happened. They will not find their missing plane, the search will be called off soon.
Even if they knew exactly where to look, the results would have been the same, nothing will ever be recovered.
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
Sadly, without the ping that they were hearing over the weekend, it's looking that way. IF the ping was the plane, and if only someone had found it a week sooner…
originally posted by Annette
I got curious and decided to check out the area they are searching at the moment for strange anomalies or undiscovered hidden things.
The water does not look that deep were I am at the moment. Decidedly uninteresting. But there has to be an explanation for them picking up those pings, the wreckage site is no where near there.
originally posted by Annette
http://www.news.com.au/national/search-for-mh370-what-lies-beneath-the-southern- indian-ocean/story-fncynjr2-1226878949026
And then nothing. Not surprising that.
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
No, but I'm hopeful that they find at least one or two more signals and are able to reduce the search area enough to deploy that blue fin search vessel. And yes, I'm an incurable optimist.
originally posted by Annette
I will join the conspiracy theorists on this one, the direction the whole search ended up going, smelled a bit fishy.
No matter how many honks they hear, no wild goose is going to appear. Someone decided for good reason the wreck site should remain undiscovered.