There’s a pair of smallish work boots in the spare bedroom and a few other knick-knacks she left when she was last here.  There’s a big smile she left in my heart too.  It’s mine now and it will always be, and it’s one of the few things that hasn’t been claimed by cobwebs.  Literal and figurative cobwebs – but those ginkgo supplements do help. I doubt if she thinks about this old Ozark farm very often these days. 

Maybe someday my fond memories of her will fade like everything else seems to as I arrive at a stage of my journey through this existence I used to consider to be life.  Having turned seventy years old last year, I guess I’ve finally come to realize life isn’t what I once thought it is supposed to be – in a way it’s sort of disappointing, but in another way, it’s sort of a relief.  I no longer have to try and live up to a lot of the expectations I always felt I needed to achieve.  In a way, it’s like taking a burden of pride off my shoulders.  Priorities change.  Many unfulfilled dreams have long been packed away – mostly in silent corners of outbuildings, likely never to be reopened, never to be realized, nor indeed remembered, once I take that last hike. Anyways, most of those expectations were those I placed on myself, so I’m free to discard them at will.

On the brighter side, there are some advantages to arriving at geezerhood.  Things that used to be so important to me now seem to carry less significance.  I’m able to “zoom out” and get an albeit belated, fresh perspective.  I’m sure she’ll get there someday too, but for now she’s in that glorious process of spreading those precious little wings – I remember that phase of my own life, and that of my daughters, and at the most significant level – as it should be – I’m able to excuse her for having left me to wipe a tear away once in a while as I reflect on tidbits of her presence with me – like those dusty work boots.  And that priceless smile.

She’s away in college and life is undoubtedly teaching her those lessons us aged creatures have learned through the years, and when she gets to the point in life where I am, she’ll surely understand that the lessons she learned outside the classroom are among the most important of them all.  I hope some of the things she learned out in the woods when those boots were on her feet will be among them.  Of course, she’d never be caught wearing work boots where she is now – we bought them for her when she was up here on the farm visiting.  They kept her feet warm and saved her toes from accidentally dropped firewood as she helped me with chores.  Maybe she’ll make it back up here while I’m still around.  What a lift for this old heart to see her!

I remember when we lived out in Colorado when she was just a pup.  Her family lived with me then, in fact she and her mom had lived with me since she was born.  She was maybe four or five years old.  Around Pueblo where we lived, there isn’t much rain – it’s semi-arid prairie country – but we did get some rain in the spring and it filled up ditches and holes, only to rapidly evaporate when the blazing Southern Colorado sun returned.  The creatures of the prairie take advantage of the sparse rainfall, mostly in reproductive pursuits, and little frogs lay thousands of eggs in every water hole – eggs which would quickly hatch.  We had one such waterhole in a ditch about a quarter of a mile down the dirt road from our place, and one day after a recent rain, she and I happened to walk by it and saw thousands of tiny tadpoles struggling in the muddy but still precious water.  By the time we saw them, the sun was already beating mercilessly on the rapidly drying terrain, and I casually mentioned to her that those little guys wouldn’t make it because the hole would dry up before they got grown.  Later that day and for the next several days I watched as she put a five-gallon bucket on her little wagon and filled it with water from the garden hose and a little biped mammal trudged down the road to pour it in the puddle so the diminutive baby amphibians could survive.  What a heart God put in that little angel!

Her mom got married to a fine young fellow and they eventually got a family started and moved away – tore a big chunk out of my old ticker to have to part with them.  These days she goes to college and plays the clarinet in the college wind orchestra.  She picked it up in high school and got really good at it.  For anyone who might get the impression that I’m bragging on my granddaughter, well ok I am, so I’ll add that in her senior year in the Lufkin high school she made first chair in the all-Texas State band.  I guess that means she was the best high school clarinet player in the whole state. 

Here in the Ozarks the dogwoods are about to open out their blooms, I expect in about three weeks.  Their buds are swelling, and the woods are going to come alive with rivers of snow-white flowers flowing brightly along all the roads.  Weather conditions in the spring vary with rainfall, late cold spells, and such, so some years the blooms are more extravagant than others.  Though they are always pretty, a couple of years ago we had a really spectacular bloom.  Up until then, I had never seen such a beautiful sight in the woods.  It’s just impossible to describe – there’s a touching emotional component to such a sight.  It really puts you in a mood to tell God how much you appreciate His grace for giving us things like that on this old earth.  Alyssa wasn’t here to see it, and pictures just don’t do it justice.  Maybe on some spring break down the road she’ll make it here to enjoy a dogwood bloom.  I get this mental image of her wearing her bulky work boots out in the woods, watching in silence and awe as a spring breeze gently caresses those boughs of snowy decadence.  That smile of hers would shine for sure!

I have to close here and get to some spring chores.  Though I love her and miss her, at my age I understand how life works, and with the wonderful company of two of my daughters, a few precious in-and-out grandkids, a great son-in-law, and my beloved dogs I’m not really lonely.  Alyssa has a boyfriend now and lots of things going on in her world.  She’ll (hopefully) finish college and get on with her life as an adult, maybe raise some kids of her own, and who knows?  I might still be around to enjoy them every now and then.  

But for now, there’s firewood to split and a garden to till – life in the Ozarks goes on.

MK

I did a post recently about a plane crash up in the Yukon for which people have been searching for over 70 years. The post is at Not Hidden – Obliterated – Folk Potpourri. Several pictures taken from the satellite imagery are in that post and are not included in this one. I sort of get the feeling I’m searching alone in this area and would very much like to get others interested in looking at this site. Younger, sharper eyes might find things that these old 70-year-old eyes don’t see.

The coordinates are: 61-42’24” and 137-51’58”. Although the coordinates direct you to a specific spot, there’s actually a fairly big area of debris all around it. Again, I remind the reader that there is very little recognizable wreckage there – you gotta study it. Readers who might like to practice sleuthing will likely find other things that these posts have missed. Here’s a few pictures of some more imagery with some items that are man-made:

Look closely in the blue box, I’ve marked what I think is a gutted piece of fuselage with some kind of antenna attached to it. Sharp pointed black object upper left pointing to ten o’clock. There are no trees on top of this mountain so it’s unlikely to be a limb, and rocks don’t grow like that. Sharper eyes than mine might well see other things in the pic that I missed. Like whatever that piece in the bottom right is, it’s not a rock.

In this image, if you study it carefully, you’ll see several man-made objects including the basket-shaped piece in the lower left under the “h” in Google Earth. Inside the red circle is a curious piece with what looks like light colored stripes on the end. For some reason, this piece in particular seems to scream at me every time I scan it. It’s like, “Hey! Look at me – figure out what I am and you’ll be able to solve this puzzle!” Almost looks like the end of a propeller blade, but who knows? From the amount of debris in this immediate area, I think this is very near the point of impact – or at least the main impact. See how the earth is kind of shoved up into a pile in places with shadows behind (above)? These areas are devoid of the natural distribution of rocks too.

This is another picture I picked purposely so you can zoom in and look among the smithereens for man-made things. There are many. The circled object looks like some kind of gearbox housing with a circle of flange bolts broken out of what appears to be a thick casting. You can spend a lot of time finding odd-shaped objects in this one. For instance, there’s a bunch of pieces of torn and crumpled sheet metal scattered all around. Even though the color is close to the natural terrain, if you look carefully, you can tell slightly off-color objects from the rocks. Also looks like a lot of lichen covering everything, but some of the metal pieces are a tan off-white color and for some reason, some don’t have much lichen on them.

This pic also has several objects of interest, but in the red circle (again, need to zoom it) is an interesting piece of wreckage with what looks like some kind of insignia – the light-colored spot with dark petal-shaped forms around it. Note the straight lines and sharp right-angled corners of this piece – definitely not a natural rock formation. Again, several more objects of interest in addition to the marked one.

So far, although there appear to be some things that look like insignias of some kind, I haven’t found anything to confirm that this is the C-54 wreck. I don’t know of any other large aircraft that have gone missing it that neck of the woods and there is a lot of wreckage here, so if this is indeed a big plane wreck, it stands a good chance of being 2469 – the plane in question. This site is only a couple hundred yards off a straight line between Snag and Aishik. This picture is from imagery at the top of the ridgeline and there is debris strewn down both sides of the mountain from the ridge.

The method that works best for me doing is finding things that look peculiar and copying the image and reopening it with editing software – you can adjust contrast, lighting and color saturation to see it better. All of the pictures posted have been lightened up and color enhanced.

I really need help with this project. Even if someone could find evidence that this is not what I think it is, it would help to alleviate my frustration, but until it is disproven, I’m going to keep looking here. I think I have the comments settings fixed where it’s easier to leave comments, so by all means, even if you think the old grandpa is off his rocker, let me know what you think.

Keep in mind that there’s a good reason this thing hasn’t been found for 74 years. It’s not easy to see. If it was, it would have been found already. This search definitely needs to go to another level of scrutiny, and man I would love to go there and see in person all these little bits and pieces and what they actually are. I’ve spent many hours poring over this wreckage.

Happy hunting.

MK

December 5, 2023

Note: Discussion settings are revised now – it’s easier to leave comments.

Somewhere in this remote mountainous terrain lie the remains of a tragedy.

There was a plane that went missing back in January of 1950. It was a military Douglas C-54D, number 42-72469, on a route from Alaska to Montana with 44 people on board. Last anyone heard from it was a radio call from near Snag, Yukon. Most likely a progress call-in to update flight status and location. The next call-in was supposed to be when they got over Aishihik, Yukon, southeast of Snag, but that call never came and no one has heard from the flight since. If I remember correctly, the flight crew reported some icing taking place during the Snag report – a piece of the overall puzzle that might have played a big part. Icing is when there’s a build-up of layer of ice, especially on the leading edges of the wings which dramatically interferes with airflow, hence lift, of the wing. There have been numerous crashes of planes over the years due to icing.

Since it was a military plane with military personnel aboard there was an intensive search for it, but the January snow both impeded the search and covered up any crash evidence. At first the weather was horrendous. Some planes involved in the original search crashed while searching in the bad weather, but it seems everyone survived those. The official search gradually tapered off and a couple of years into it, other events of higher priority concerning military aircraft occurred rendering the search for 2469 pretty much terminated, but relatives of the missing and other interested parties continued to search and follow up tips, and they have done so to this day. There was a documentary a few months ago about a revived interest in the search. Seems like the new search is dubbed Operation Mike, after the name of the pilot. That might have been the name of the original search too.

There are blogs out there where people post whatever information they might have, and some swap out stories of eyewitness reports, conspiracy theories, and so forth, so for sure, the search has become a thing once again.  In fact, sometimes it seems the search itself has overtaken the thing being sought.

The implications of finding this aircraft are not to be taken lightly. Thousands of people have been searching for scores of years. There has grown a veritable cult of people from all walks of life, commenting on social media with tips, speculation, mundane technicalities, of typical interactional traits. There are arguments, insults, lots of one-upmanship, and to tell the truth, sometimes it seems that “The Search” and its inherent camaraderie has found a life of its own seemingly divergent from the objective of finding the object sought. Individuals and organizations purporting to be professional searchers seem to have found sustenance in the search for this airplane. Things will change for a lot of people if it is found.

I became interested in the search, (not so much “The Search”) as lots of other folks have, not least because it’s understood by all of us that everybody deserves a proper burial. Being a veteran myself, it’s unsettling to think those guys were in the service just like I was and they’re MIA – still are after all those years. Somewhere up there enduring those long, dark winters in icy cold, lonely mountains, the bones of some boys that were serving their country during peacetime still lie, but it was a time when a horrific war was still fresh in everyone’s memory.  Bones of those boys and those of a lady with a young child who were traveling with them.  There must be relatives of the missing personnel who are still around and who’d like to have closure too.

People are searching using Google Earth. Most of the imagery is blurry up close and when you zoom out far enough to get good resolution it’s usually from too far up to see what you’re looking for. Still, it’s what’s available, and until they come up with some way to achieve better resolution, it’s all we have.  You can get to a point looking at it where you get goofy, but it is possible to make out some things.  The area of wreckage this post discusses is located a scant few hundred yards off a straight-line path between Snag and Aishihik, Yukon. Takes some dedicated searching. You just have to keep telling yourself that those souls are waiting to properly be laid to rest and the wreck is out there somewhere.

Regardless of the possible negative impact it might have on “The Search”, I made the decision to share pictures of the things I’ve found. There’s some interesting stuff in that mountainous area of the imagery in the opening picture of this article. Up close, the stuff in the area of interest looks like it could be wreckage, but it would help if a person was familiar with parts and pieces of a C-54, to make sense of any of it. Besides, if this is wreckage, it would appear that the aircraft smashed into that mountainside pretty violently and there are very few large pieces. A person looking for an intact aircraft carcass would be sure to miss this wreck. You have to zoom in till it gets almost blurry to see things, in fact at first glance without really looking closely, you won’t see much of anything. 

If what this post describes is the wreckage everyone is looking for, it is disappointingly pulverized.  As mentioned, there are few big pieces of a recognizable plane, but wreckage is there, you just have to study what you can see.  But then, that’s the hard part.  It takes determination and tenacity to pore over the imagery at the level required in order to find something.

It seems there are other missing planes in that part of the world, so the possibility, however unlikely, exists that the wreckage found here might be from another crash, but even if is, it’s still wreckage. The picture below illustrates just how difficult it is to make out things from the available imagery.

As you can see, there’s hardly anything discernible. Especially from this far up. To the left of the yellow pins are things that have been identified by zooming in and in many cases editing the lighting, contrast, color saturation, etc., to be able to see the things a little more clearly. The areas with the circles drawn have literally piles of debris in them. In fact, it was the area in the circle on the left that initially drew my attention to this site, but the circle wasn’t there then. Lots of interesting objects. The ever-so-slight color variation in that area is from what might have been a fire from long ago.

All around this site you can find items with symmetry and shapes that do not occur in nature. Circular objects, mangled sheet metal, flat pieces that leave shadowing noticeably different from that of rocks, pieces with perfectly straight lines and right angles, etc., but you have to zoom in, and in most cases edit lighting to be able to see them.

To gain a better understanding of why everything is so hard to discern, consider this: What remains of the craft appears to have undergone an extremely violent collision with the mountainside, leaving little of the craft large enough to recognize and/or identify. The large area of the scattered debris indicates there was probably a big crash. There have been 70+ years of rain, snow, mud, possible avalanches, high winds to blow around lighter pieces, and probably years of high intensity sunlight to bleach coloring. Aluminum, from which the fuselage is predominately constructed, oxidizes and takes off-white, grey, and greenish colors of the proximate environment, making it more difficult to see. There was a devastating 9+ magnitude earthquake back in the 60s not far away in Alaska which would have undoubtedly shaken things around, especially anything that might have been precariously clinging to a steep mountainside. Some of the items appear to be half buried in what may have been mud from rains. On top of all of this, you have to use grainy, pixelated imagery to be able to try and figure out what it is. Don’t really mean to complain so much about the imagery, it’s probably better than psychics and crystal balls.

To illustrate the difference between the original imagery and what things look like after editing, the following pictures from the imagery are shown:

The above picture is from original satellite imagery unedited. Looks like nothing but rocks.

This lower picture is approximately the same image after a bit of editing lighting and color, no object in the image has been altered. It looks to be the front of an engine in the red circle. The yellow lines point to what look like cowl flaps and the blue line could be a propeller blade, bent up (bent to the viewer’s right) in the 10 o’clock part of the circle. If you Google Pratt & Whitney R-2000 Twin Wasp engine, you can find not destroyed engines to compare to this image. The level of detail needed to positively identify this as the P&W engine, unfortunately is just not there.

The next image looks like part of an aircraft tail section in the center red circle. Is it from a C-54?

The next image is what looks like a cargo door in the larger circle. If you look closely, protruding outside the left side of the circle might be the accompanying cargo door (I believe there were two doors together that closed onto each other), but it’s not as discernable. Whatever that is in the smaller circle is unidentified. I call it the bird cage. It is definitely man-made, so what is it doing out here on a mountain top in the middle of nowhere miles and miles from the nearest road? Although size scale is near impossible with the fuzzy imagery and uneven terrain, this object would still be way too big to be something a hunter could have lugged up that mountain. If you have any idea, please leave it in the comments.

The image below is somewhat harder to make out, but it appears to be an engine nacelle still attached to a part of a wing. There are corroded cowl flap plates in the roundish area on the right of the center circle, and on the left side of that object and still in the circle, there is a nice black, symmetrical curve with a greenish coloring inside the arc. That curve looks to be the leading edge of the wing and the greenish part would be the inside of the wing, possibly a fuel tank bulkhead. It’s hard to discern whether the thing is right side up. To the left and overlapping the wing piece is a rather large round piece of crumpled sheet metal. Some of that piece is outside the circle. This whole section of debris is likely to have been some of that which tumbled down from the impact area.

This last picture is of a basket-shaped object lying on its side, maybe it’s something out of the plane’s cargo bay. Maybe it’s a piece of the plane. It’s near the ridgeline at the top of the hill, so whatever it is it must be pretty heavy to not have been blown off the hill for almost 74 years:

We can keep searching, but dare we find it?