Posted on 11/28/2007 10:46:37 AM PST by RicocheT
What are the lotto numbers tomorrow !
Your Good !
Well, Petunia, I would say that he’s dead and they ain’t.
I was thinking that too. I wonder how much the estate is worth. Where did he get all his money anyway for all those failed attempts to fly around the world in a balloon?
This is very difficult to explain to people who haven’t hiked/hunted/off-roaded/etc in Northern Nevada. In other areas of the country outside the intermountain west, it is far easier to find things like airplanes and people.
Here in Nevada.... it is really difficult, even for those of us who live here, know the terrain, have hiked/hunted extensively, etc. I’ve hunted/hiked/off-roaded extensively in this state and love it. It is NOT a place to lose your head, go out poorly prepared or to not have survival training under your belt.
My hunting buddies just (as in the last month) found the remains of a plane similar to Fossett’s here in the Diamond Mountains (east/central NV) and it appears that the plane wreck has been there for at least 40+ years. The tube frame and flat-four engine make it look like a Cub or similar type of plane. No one here, not even the old folks, have any recollection of any plane wreck that had not been accounted for.
Once you get outside of the cities, Nevada has huge tracts of undeveloped, untraveled lands. The mountains are high, the canyons are tight, the pinyon pine/juniper cover can be thick in some areas, the topology of the terrain folds and undulates in ways that hide things on the ground from air searches. To find crashes and lost people, you have to get out there on your own two feet and look for things.
Side note: Many people were ranting and howling about how we missed Osama in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. That area is very similar to Nevada, only 10K’ higher in elevation in some places. I could completely believe how Osama slipped through a net of spec-ops guys out looking for him. I’m hardly in spec-ops sort of physical condition, but I know this local terrain and if you put a bunch of guys out in these mountains looking for me and I was able to travel lightly, I’m pretty confident I could easily evade our nation’s best warriors given home-turf advantage in this area. I don’t care about FLIR in planes, IR goggles, whatever. I know the terrain and hidey-holes, the newcomers won’t know this, and that’s what matters when you’re looking for anything in Nevada. The number of people who are really, really familiar with any particular area of Nevada numbers only in the hundreds in any given area of the state.
Mountainous terrain in Nevada eats planes. Has eaten planes since before WWII. You can find WWII wrecks all over this state — some of them very unknown outside a few locals and completely invisible until you’re literally standing on top of them.
I know it is hard to believe this - please trust me. There’s no lack of diligence on the part of people searching for Mr. Fossett — this is just tough, tough country.
Folks visiting Nevada for hunting/off-roading/hiking: Please keep what I’ve said in mind if you get off road and you’ve not told anyone where they’re going. If you don’t tell *local* people where you’re going and you get out into the brush and get into trouble — your next of kin will be asking a whole lot of us locals to drop everything and go out looking for you.
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100 points to you for the excellent incorporation of a Monty Python sketch into a Free Republic post.
“Is it possible that he could have just flown off somewhere, with the intent to disappear? I think 3 months is too soon to declare him dead. They should at least wait a year.”
What I wonder too ... for Fossett ... if alive or dead ... this is the ultimate adventure.
You’re exactly correct - it is tough, tight country and crash sites are easily missed.
I think one of the things that confuses most people about Nevada are the following things:
1. Most people see “Nevada” as being like the terrain surrounding Las Vegas - what we locals call “the low desert.” The vegetation is very sparse, the ground is quite open, the mountains are mostly naked rock, devoid of most vegetation.
2. Most people have been reading these reports in the press of Mr. Fossett having crashed in “the desert.” The area in which he might have crashed is not what we locals call “a desert.” The area of Death Valley, the area in southern Clark County — that’s “desert.” The area up here in the north is technically “high desert” when we compare it to most of the rest of the continental US, but we don’t think of it as “desert” - folks from the coasts think of it as “desert.”
If folks look at a map of Nevada, you’ll see a US highway (US Route 6) that bisects the state east/west from Tonopah in the west to about Lund in the east. South of US-6 is what we locals call “the low desert” and north of that is “the high desert” for outsiders, but just “the brush” to us locals. The change in the landscape is quite stark - south of US 6, trees are quite rare. North of US 6, there are scads of trees (up to about 30’ tall) all over the hillsides and up in the canyons.
Actually, it has already been discussed on Coast to Coast AM with George Nory. That is why his beacon never went off. In twenty years he will return and land his aircraft as if nothing has happened.
I wonder if perhaps he didn’t want to be found. Perhaps he was suffering a terminal illness, and decided on a kervorkian flight ending in a mystery... Just pointless conjecture.
I wonder if this will be the first missing persons case to be solved by somebody using Google Earth?
Sorry. That's why I put a question mark at the end. It was just a guess, a hunch, since some people can be that way. No disrespect intended.
and
“I can’t be clearer (unless I abandoned my euphemisms): Fossett stared Death in the face and took a dirt nap. His was a race well run but in the end he reached the finish line and met his Maker. He rowed the boat ashore and crossed the River Jordan. There, he bought the farm and kicked the bucket. He was called home by the angels who carried him away. Fossett walked the seven steps to heaven and found everlasting peace.”
So, I take it you don’t think he made it.
...and, yes, profound sympathy to his family. Even with a body, closure is a myth.
“So, you think Fossett was captured by the Japanese?”
Or spirited away by aliens to the far side of the Galaxy?
(Star Trek Voyager reference)
He was abducted by aliens. I think there is a 7 year wait isnt there? He may still come back...and even might arrive before the time he left.
I understood what you said, no need to be ‘clearer’.
I’ve just learned til you see a dead body you haven’t seen a dead body.
Look mate, this pilot is definitely deceased. He’s bleeding demised. He’s not pining for the fjords, he’s passed on. This pilot is no more. He has ceased to be. He’s expired and gone to meet his maker. This is a late pilot. He’s a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s pushing up the daisies. He’s rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-pilot.
100 points to you for the excellent incorporation of a Monty Python sketch into a Free Republic post.
Ahhhh. Not being a huge fan of Monty and the boys, its no wonder I missed it.
thanks.
Do a search for Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch and you’ll see the connection!
And, at Python member Graham Chapman’s funeral, John Cleese gave the eulogy in almost the exact same words.
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