Was Glenn Miller a Victim of Friendly Fire?

A documentary to be broadcast on Great Britain’s Channel 4 on New Year’s Eve claims to solve one of the minor yet vexing mysteries of World War II — the disappearance of band leader Glenn Miller.

Miller’s plane took off from Great Britain on December 15, 1944 to carry the bandleader to Paris where he was scheduled to perform for American troops. His plane disappeared in the fog and was never seen or heard from again.

Reuters reports that the Channel 4 documentary revives a claim that had been previously rejected — that Miller’s plane was a victim of friendly fire from Allied bombers returning from an aborted bombing mission.

Fred Shaw, who was a navigator on one of those bombers, claimed in the 1950s that the aborted mission likely took out Miller’s plane. In order to land safely in England, the 139 bombers released all of their bombs into the English Channel. Shaw claimed that he saw the bombs hit a small plane beneath the bombers, but didn’t realize until much later that this was likely Miller’s plane.

Shaw’s claims have generally been rejected, largely because he was perceived as a publicity seeker and there were a number of open questions about whether Shaw’s bomber group and Miller’s plane could have possibly crossed paths since the two flights seemed to have about an hour-long difference as to when they would have been over the channel.

Aviation historian Roy Nesbit claims he’s solved those and other mysteries. The hour-long time difference, which supposedly made Shaw’s account impossible, turns out to be no discrepancy at all. Nesbit claims the alleged time difference is entirely due to the fact that the Americans recorded Miller’s departure in local time, whereas the British recorded the bomber flight’s departure and arrival time in Greenwich Mean Time.

Nesbit also argues that the flight path that Miller’s plane would have had to take would have put it only a couple miles from a zone over the English Channel designated for bombers to dump munitions (and which was kept secret, so Miller’s pilot would have had no idea he had ventured into airspace where munitions would be ditched).

Add to that Miller’s pilot’s inexperience with instrument flying and that he would have had to rely solely on a compass in the heavy fog that day — and the possibility that Miller could have been a victim of friendly fire doesn’t look so farfetched.

But the key is still whether or not Shaw could have properly identified Miller’s plane, with a lot of folks wondering how Shaw could have possibly recognized Miller’s Canadian-made Noorduyn Norseman, when only a handful were used in Great Britain. Nesbit’s answer: Shaw received his aviation training in Canada, where the Norseman was in widespread use.

Sources:

Glenn Miller ‘died under hail of British bombs’. Peter Lemon, The Guardian Unlimited, December 15, 2001.

Glenn Miller killed by friendly fire, paper says. Reuters, December 15, 2001.

Federal Officials Tried to Fake Lynx Data

An ongoing point of controversy in the western part of the United States is the protection of lynx habitat. Environmentalists claim that lynx habitat is endangered and want new restrictions on private and public lands, while developers and others argue that lynx habitat is not endangered and new regulations are not needed. In the midst of this controversy comes word that federal employees of the U.S. Forest Service and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service apparently tried to plant evidence indicating lynx were present in a federal forest that is currently part of a three-year study of the species.

The research in question was a three-year study authorized by the Clinton administration to study the habitat of the lynx population in and around the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington state. The study used rubbing posts in the forests which were then examined for the presence of lynx hair.

But at least seven government officials were disciplined for planting at least three samples of lynx hair on the posts. When the DNA of the lynx hair was analyzed, two of the samples matched a lynx living in an animal preserve, and the third sample match that of a lynx that had been held by the government until its owner reclaimed it. The government officials had taken hair from those animals, and affixed it to the rubbing posts to make it appear as if lynx had been in the area.

Had the ruse succeeded, this could have led to restrictions on human activity within the two parks.

When caught, the three Forest Service employees, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, and two Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employees claimed they were simply trying to “test” the lab’s DNA expertise. Those who participated in the scheme have been banned from any further participation in the survey, although the government will not release their names citing privacy issues.

Source:

Rare lynx hairs found in forests exposed as hoax. Audrey Hudson, The Washington Times, December 17, 2001.

Britney Spears Wants to Work with an Animal Rights Group that Does Not "Distort the Truth" (Good Luck!)

The on again, off again relationship between Britney Spears and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is once again off as the entertainer’s spokeswoman accused PETA of falsely claiming that Spears would pose nude for a PETA promotional effort.

This whole episode began when PETA threatened to protest Spears over her use of live animals onstage. Spears agreed to stop using the live animals in her act and also agreed to lend her image to a PETA poster.

Then media reports surfaced claiming that Spears would pose naked for PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur Campaign.” Spears’ publicist Lisa Kasteler told the BBC that the singer only agreed to provide a photograph of herself, fully clothed, for a PETA poster at a New York night club that excludes people who wear fur.

Kasteler accused PETA of falsely spreading the rumor that Spears would appear in the nude, and told the BBC, “Notwithstanding the meaningful work that PETA does, we cannot be involved with an organization that would distort the truth.”

Kasteler said Spears is still very interested in animal rights, but I suspect she’ll likely run through her 15 minutes of fame long before she is able to find an animal rights group that doesn’t distort the truth.

The best part of the controversy, though, was seeing PETA’s Dan Mathews (the same Mathews who admires serial killer Andrew Cunanan) telling the BBC that, “We’ve never distorted anything. We simply confirmed that we planned on doing a poster with her — we never said anything about nudity.”

PETA? Distort something? How could the press even think such a thing, given PETA’s track record? Oh yeah, right. Scratch that.

Source:

Fur flies over Britney posters. The BBC, December 14, 2001.

Spanish Court Rewards Rapist for Being Drunk

In what it Women’s eNews right calls its “Outrage of the Week,” Spain’s Supreme Court recently reduced the sentence of a man convicted of raping a mentally retarded girl. The sentence for the 18-year-old rapist was reduced from 13.5 years to 8 years on the grounds that the man was drunk at the time. Two co-defendants who helped pin the girl down also had their sentences reduced. The Supreme Court ruled,

Having ingested alcoholic beverages throughout the night, the three accused manifested an intellectual capacity that was slightly below average. Taken together, these may be considered to have keenly affected their volitional faculties.

Since the men were drunk, they had a limited capacity to choose not to commit rape! This is absurd. The only thing these men have a limited capacity for is living within the rules of society. What a stupid decision.

Source:

Spanish Rapist’s Sentence Reduced: He Was Drunk. Women’s eNews, December 15, 2001.

The Bin Laden Video Is Fake, and the Holocaust Never Happened

From what I can see skimming this morning’s news, a lot of the reaction from Arab newspapers and television is that the Bin Laden video released by the United States yesterday is a fake.

This from a region of the world where newspapers regularly republish The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if they were legitimate historical documents. In fact, television producers in Egypt are in the midst of creating one of the most expensive miniseries ever in that part of the world which includes a major subplot about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy taken straight out of the Protocols.

Add to that the commonplace Holocaust denial, and the recycling of medieval myths about Jews (such as Suha Arafat’s claim that Israel was poisoning the water that Palestinians drink), and you have to wonder what exactly the standard of evidence for authenticating documents is in the Middle East.

Lift U.S. Quotas on Bangladesh Textiles

Bangladesh Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chodhury visited the United States in mid-November to ask the U.S. to life its quotas on textile products from that Asian country. The United States should do the right thing and oblige them.

Developed countries such as the United States complain incessantly about the lack of free markets within the developing world, but at the same time maintain backward trade regimes that prevent poor countries from developing export industries of their own (which also raise the cost of living for residents in developed countries).

If the United States really wants to do something about poverty in the Third World, it should immediately lift all trade restrictions with developing nations as soon as possible.

Source:

Bangladesh wants textiles curbs lifted. BBC, November 12, 2001.