Somehow, this must be Obama’s fault.
It was headed to Hawaii. Coincidence?
And aboard the tugboat, officials were also stunned to find the remains of Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, and Jimmy Hoffa.
In what way is the “mystery” “solved?” There wasn’t any mystery that it sank, right? Now we know that it sank a few hours after leaving San Francisco, but we still have the mystery of why the heck it sank. Isn’t that the “century-old-mystery” that still needs to be solved?
Second paragraph:
The USS Conestoga departed San Francisco Bay for Pearl Harbor in March 1921. But the boat never made it to Hawaii, and her 56-man crew was declared lost. The boat was never found, despite a search that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles and was the biggest air and sea search of its time.
The mystery of the wreck’s location has been solved.
Except that it is clearly the fault of California Republicans. You know, the people who brought you all Ronald Raygun at Petey Wheatstraw Wilson. And the Donald, somehow.
Seriously: the waters between the Golden Gate and the Farallones are the incredibly rough and dangerous Potato Patch shoals. If you think you are not susceptible to motion sickness, ride a small boat through the huge chop. If the boat and your belly both survive, then…strong boat and belly.
While the PP Shoals probably existed before the Great Era of Catastrophe, which opened in Coloma in early 1848 (giving its name to Santa Clara’s concussionball franchise), they are undoubtedly much worse because of capitalist extractive industry in the early years of the GEC, specifically the hydraulic mining in the canyons of the American, Bear, Yuba, Feather and other watersheds of the Sierra Nevada. Malikoff Diggins State Park preserves the upstream evidence (as do views from I-80 around Gold Run, and Highway 49 at the Yuba-Sierra County Line). The downstream results included catastrophic flooding in valley towns, most importantly Marysville and Sacramento, clogging of the downstream shipping channels, and eventually major depositions of mud outside the Golden Gate…sort of like steroids for the Potato Patch.
And the first environmental protection legislation in U.S. history, outlawing hydraulic mining practices.
And the construction of the Englebright Reservoir, at the top of the main stem of the Yuba above Marysville. This is a debris dam, whose primary purpose is to capture the silt that continues to flow off these sites. Alas, the poor thing is almost full. What next?
Proper California Republicans, like their brethren (and a few deluded sistren) in Texas, would denounce all of this as evil communist environmental Mexican islamicist interference in the magic of the marketplace. To which I can only answer, abracadabra right back atcha. Use the mercury-laden silt to scrub the blood of the Conestoga’s crew off your greedy mitts.
Mystery? What was the other possibility, launched itself into space? Who writes these headlines?
I have been up there at the Rucky Chucky river crossing-the damage is incredible.
No loved ones to feel any relief. When did ships start having radios? Prior to radios ships were on there own … it was a hard life for those in the boats and family on shore. It is good to know what happened and maybe take a look at the wreckage for reasons.
Radio was the internet of it’s day. It must have been unbelievable to be out at sea and contact other boats and the shore. We aren’t thankful enough for what we have. The strange thing is that if they knew how to make them the Roman’s could have used rudimentary radios without electricity and high tech equipment…
It were a whale, I tell ya’ !
The History channel says, “Yes, we considered that a possible explanation for the Conestoga’s disappearance.”
I went to Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, so I posted a link to this story on a Facebook page for Conestoga graduates. Another Conestoga graduate made a post below mine in which he said he was one of the people who helped locate the wreck.