A radius of 40 miles!!! My math might be off here, but isn't that still like 5000 square miles? Pi*R^2 ?


Kinda like looking for..... frick. I don't know. Something really hard to find. It's been a long day. lol

Considering the current search area is the size of Texas (268,820 sq. mi.) - I'm sure they'd like to narrow it down to 5K sq. mi.

Still - that's like the size of the state of Connecticut.

I'm in Dubai, watching the BBC news, they are reporting some debris in the southern Indian Ocean, 2300km SW of Perth, spotted by satellites. Aussies are sending aircraft to search the area. May be just trash, or might be relevant stuff.

They say the piece of debris is 24m (70ft?) in length so it must be something substantial.
Navy planes and ships are on their way.

Diversion from what? (Queue the Twilight Zone music.)

I'm curious about this obsession. Why?

Was that directed at anyone in particular?

No, it seems to be an international frenzy.

It's a mystery with a lot of facets that create intrigue.

It seems to be a form of conspiracy theory which invariably leads to irrational beliefs. Just wondering what it is about the human psyche that causes this departure from the rational.

Pete didn't you pay the bills by working in the field of the human psyche? You know the answer to your question now where exaclty are you trying to take us today?

Yes Jake I know, but I haven't been down a good rabbit hole in a while.

Its called the internet.

Before all the crazy people would be isolated to have their crazy ideas to themselves.

As Joe Rogan said... "Now you can find other crazy people who believe the same crazy **** you do and you can ride that crap all the way to the apocalypse."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/show/130102/the-true-story-of-the-mary-celeste

Mysteries abound, I'm just not understanding why so many otherwise rational people become engrossed in them.

My opinion is that it all stems from human curiosity - an evolutionary trait that has led to our extended survival as a species, our technology, and our society. Compared to other species, we retain more of our child-like curiosity (and playfulness) as we mature. Tied to this curiosity, we also have a psychological need for closure...i.e. "an answer" to the question in front of us. Unknowns leave an emotional void in all of us. People have different levels of a need for closure of that void and some are willing to accept lesser degrees of verified "truths" in order to obtain that emotional satisfaction in that closure. This then becomes a belief that may be completely irrational but has satisfied the emotional need.

I'm thinkin' fear of the unknown. Most people need an orderly, structured world. Then some of us are anarchists..

Jake, all this talk of "closure" just reminds me of an episode of Friends with one of the 1,000 times Ross and Rachel couldn't get their act together as a couple.

Random thought of the day...

Mike

What could be more structured than "planes crash now and then, sometimes they crash in places where they are really hard to relocate".. I think it is the mystery that lets people fantasize and theorize attracting attention to this.

In the news, this missing plane totally overshadows that the cold war version 2 have started.

It hasn't overshadowed it, we just don't like talking about it.