NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2024 Feb 2, 09:16 -0800
I would imagine that Gary LaPook might not have time to reply for a few days because his "phone is ringing off the hook" (that's an expression that would have worked even in 1937 but today translate it as his "email inbox is overflowing").
We haven't seen the sonar image itself here on NavList yet, and I can imagine some of you haven't encountered it yet (!). I'm attaching a copy from the National Geographic website article on this. To me it looks somewhat like an airplane. The team cites the appearance of a split tail which would match the tail on Earhart's Electra. I'm concerned that the two streaks that would correspond to the twin vertical stabilizers appear to be aligned exactly with the scan direction of this sonar image. Everything is "streaked" in the vertical direction in the image. That implies the split tail could be an illusion, an imaging artifact. Also, there are no bright sonar contacts on the wings where the engines should be. If this is the Electra, I find that surprising.
Frank Reed