Rafts Carry Mystery Skeletons Onto Pacific Atolls

Reuters | 1/21/02

[kattracks]

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Mysterious bamboo rafts carrying sun-bleached skeletons have washed up on the shores of Pacific atolls, prompting the Federated States of Micronesia to ask the United States for help finding out where they came from.

Five skeletons, including one of a child, have been found on the 13 giant rafts that first began to appear last September, Pius Chotailug, police chief of the Pacific nation, said on Monday.

"Where they came from we don't know," Chotailug said from Pohnpei, the largest of the Federation's 607 islands which lie between Papua New Guinea and Guam and spreads out over 1,500 miles of the Western Central Pacific.

"We have an archaeologist...who helped with the investigation of the bones and found they've been dead for up to one month or two months."

Chotailug told Reuters an identity card was found in a wallet on one of the rafts.

It belonged to an Indonesian man from Bitung in Sulawesi, 1,100 miles to the southwest, where Muslims and Christians have been fighting for three years, raising the possibility the rafters were refugees from a conflict.

But the Federated States of Micronesia does not have any forensics specialists to establish some facts in the case, and has asked the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to help. So far, the FBI has not replied.

"They've been pretty busy, we know," Chotailug said.

[SERE_DOC]

"If the Howells were so rich, what were they doing on board the lowly Minnow?"

Slumming

[dead]

"The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle...

Have you ever seen such a lush "desert" isle?

[denydenydeny]

It belonged to an Indonesian man from Bitung in Sulawesi, 1,100 miles to the southwest, where Muslims and Christians have been fighting for three years, raising the possibility the rafters were refugees from a conflict.

While everyone seems to find this subject hilarious, I would be fairly confident that these skeletons are from Christians.

[fnord]

Ah, you see ... the humor lies in the biazarreness of the situation, your put-downs notwithstanding.

It matters not the religion of the raftees. Are you both implying that it would be acceptable fodder for jokes if it were known for sure that they were non-christians? That would be very ... unchristian, no?

[denydenydeny]

I don't really mind that people are making Gilligan's Island jokes here--I've done my share of that kind of thing elsewhere. I just wanted someone to start talking about the story and its implications. I underscored the likelihood of the victims being Christians because that's what the story is about, in my opinion.

[denydenydeny]

And your argument is shedding straw all over the carpet, dammit.

[Registered]

Chandra Levy

[Shooter 2.5]

"Le Radeau De La Medusa" by J. L. A. Gericault comes to mind.

[Cleburne]

Why didn't they just fix the fool boat?

[garbanzo]

It shows the lack of common humanity of many of the neo cons on the list and the depth of their cultural education ie: bad sitcoms.

And it shows what a large stick the many of the paleo-cons have up their rear.

[wattsmag2]

I was going to guess Indonesia, then I read the ID card bit. Too late once again.

[Wrigley]

Oh man. Too many jokes.

[lonevoice]

All joking on this thread aside, thirteen "huge" rafts certainly implies more than 5 people starting out. Something tells me, if the facts ever become known, this may be a tragedy of horrific proportions. I sincerely hope that the FBI will respond to appeals for forensic assistance. One child among the 5 skeletons...I wonder how many children there might have been to begin with. Somehow I don't imagine enemies of these people, whomever they were, would have been so beneficent as to supply these refugees with huge rafts. It looks like these people must have been fleeing for their lives to have risked their families and children in this way. It also looks like they had at least a little time to plan their escape and procure the rafts.

[Alabama_Wild_Man]

ha HA !!

....You Win !! !!

[strela]

The Professor could fill a cavity in a freaking TOOTH with a molten penny, but couldn't patch a 2-meter hole in the side of a boat.

[strela]

And the professor ...

Doin' the horizontal mambo w/Mary Ann. The Skipper was too obese, Gilligan was a dufus, Ginger and Mrs. Howell didn't wear Birkenstocks or listen to the Indigo Girls, and Mr. Howell didn't want to lose half of his estate to a paternity suit and/or big divorce settlement with the missus.

[Consort]

The are illegal dead people who voted for Gore and are returning home.