[meteorite-list] O.T. - Hunting the Harper - Part #2

From: Robert Verish <bolidechaser_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Feb 25 05:03:57 2005
Message-ID: <20050225100355.77164.qmail_at_web51708.mail.yahoo.com>

The following is a continuation from Part 1 of a
debris-locating story. (Could have been an
asteroid-debris-recovery story had they kept their
eyes open for little brown chondrites, but that was to
become my story, which will be told later;-) --Bob V.

------------------------

Hunting The ZEL: Part #2
A Tale of Desert Adventure, Crashed Airplanes, and a
Search That Would Never End
 
by Curtis Peebles
© Copyright 1999


 - Harper Dry Lake -

The stage upon which the adventure was played out was
Harper Dry Lake. The lakebed is about six miles long
and three miles wide, and is shaped like an elongated
U with the long axis running east to west. At about
the midpoint of the lakebed, it is crossed by a dirt
road running north to south. Beside it is a
barbed-wire fence. The area to the north of the
lakebed is a gentle slope, with a surface of sand and
small rocks washed down from the surrounding hills.
The vegetation is scattered brush. There are a series
of flood control channels to the west of the fence,
and at the far western end of the lakebed is a solar
power station. The only other man-made structures are
an abandoned shed, well, and corral

The first search attempt I participated in was made on
February 22, 1997. Merlin, Moore, and I drove out to
the general area. The first problem was to determine
the directions of the photos. It was immediately
apparent that the shots of the engineers were taken
looking almost due east. There were two sets of
mountains, and the task became finding a position
where the near and far mountains were lined up
correctly relative to each other. The photos seemed to
show a rolling landscape, with the impact point in a
low area, and a rise in the background. In my initial
viewing of the tape, I thought I could see a row of
cars parked on this rise, indicating a road or hard
surface

The other two photos were more ambiguous. The shots of
the firemen seemed to have been taken looking almost
due south, towards several low hills on the horizon.
When the two lines of sight crossed, we would find the
wreckage. There was not a clear view of the lakebed,
but rather two long tan areas against darker areas of
brush. This seemed to indicate the impact point was
back from the lakebed, with the view of the lakebed
blocked by the foreground brush. The overhead shot of
the wreckage, however, showed an area almost bare of
brush, with a light tan surface and only a scattering
of darker rocks. This indicated a site on the edge of
the lakebed. The problem was that all we had to work
with was photos taken off the television screen

Because of the rolling terrain we saw in the photo of
the engineers, we started in the general area of the
channels, which was west of the fence. We first walked
east, than turned back west. I followed Merlin, while
Moore went out ahead, closer to the lakebed. This was
more than simply a walk in the desert. We were tiny
figures alone amid a vast desert. The only sound was
our own footsteps on the sandy ground. The landscape
extended for miles in every direction, while the
horizon beckoned us onwards with the possibility of
discovering the object of our quest. Moore was now
somewhere out ahead of us, while Merlin's Jeep had
become a small white dot behind us in the distance. We
finally turned north, then back east, towards the
Jeep, and through the flood control channels

Every now and then, the surrounding desert seemed to
match that in the photos, but each time the feeling
faded. At no time did we see any indication that the
F-100 had crashed in this area. The ground was
undisturbed, and there were no small metal fragments
which might have come from an aircraft crash. When
Moore came back, he said he had found a clue. He had
headed farther west, past the old corral. At one
point, he found a set of old truck tracks - so old
there were bushes grown in them. The overhead shot had
shown a fire truck at the crash site, and was possible
that such tracks could remain even after four decades.
Moore had found no debris, however. Despite this, the
clue looked positive, and we decided to look there on
our next attempt

 - Try, Try Again -

The search adjourned for the summer months, and it was
not until November 9, 1997 that the second try was
made. We went to a part of the lakebed farther west
than the area we had searched on the first try. This
was the general area where Moore had found the tire
tracks. We found a flat area close to the edge of the
lakebed which seemed to match the overhead shot. The
ground and vegetation was similar, and the surrounding
terrain was rolling like that in the shot of the
engineers. I felt sure this was the crash site. For
more than an hour, I walked back and forth across the
area, looking for the telltale glint of metal
fragments. But they were not there. This was not the
place

There was another disappointment awaiting us when we
followed the tire tracks. They were as Moore had
described them, a single set of dual wheel tracks that
were so old that bushes were growing in them. If they
had been made by the fire truck in the overhead view,
then they would lead us right to the crash site. But
as we followed them into the desert, it became
apparent that they actually led to the corral area.
They had nothing to do with the crash. We still didn't
know where the ZEL F-100 was, but we did know where it
wasn't. These first two searches indicated that we
were looking too far west, and that the next attempt
would have to be made to the east, close to the fence
line. The desert still beckoned us on.

It wasn't until dusk that we started back. As we were
driving, we noticed a pillar of fire in the western
sky. This quickly grew into a huge iridescent
egg-shaped bubble. As this egg began to fade, a
contrail continued towards the south. It was a Delta
II booster, carrying a payload of Iridium
communications satellites being launched from
Vandenberg AFB. The bubble was from the first stage as
it shut down, while the subsequent contrail was the
second stage exhaust. Both were lit by the Sun below
the horizon

After we returned to Merlin's apartment, we re-ran the
Runways of Fire tape. Seeing the video, we noticed
several details. I had thought there was a line of
cars in the shot of the engineers. On viewing it
again, it was apparent that they were only bushes and
shadows. This was important because we had assumed
that the cars had driven along the banks of the flood
channels

The normal time for searches such as this is between
the late fall to the early spring, before the heat of
summer begins. The winter of 1997/1998 was a severe
one, however. On Palomar Mountain, it snowed as late
as April 1998, there was still snow on the ground in
May, and I did not turn off the wall heater until the
start of June. Because of this, the third search was
not made until June 27, 1998. Due to work
requirements, Tony Moore, who had been on the first
attempts, could not join us. Rather, this third search
was made by Merlin, Tony Accurso, and myself

As our small band searched the edge of the lakebed, we
had to cope with temperatures of over 100 degrees F.
The heat made it hard to breath. The sky was a
brilliant blue, while the glare from the sand was
strong. Even the water in our canteens seemed to be
hot. Our only company was a B-1B flying overhead. The
small rocks on the desert floor were dark in color,
but when they caught the light, they were highly
reflective and glinted. They looked like bits of
metal. At one point, we crossed an area which seemed
to match the firemen shot. The brush and lakebed
pattern seemed right, and there was rolling terrain to
the north. I also found a piece of metal, but Merlin
said that it did not look like it was from an aircraft


You must understand that we are in the middle of
nowhere, it is really hot, and Merlin's Jeep is
getting smaller and smaller. The Jeep was the only
easy way home. At this point, a question occurred to
me that should have been asked earlier. I asked Merlin
and Accurso if, by any chance, either of them had told
anyone where we were going? It turned out that they
had.

We finally reached the fence and stopped. It was just
too hot to go on. We turned around and went back to
the Jeep. Despite the failure to find anything, I
still believed that the one area which seemed to match
the firemen shot looked promising. I remember thinking
at the time that we had probably been within a hundred
feet of the crash site.

The desert was continuing to beckon us on...

(to be continued in Part 3:-)
Received on Fri 25 Feb 2005 05:03:55 AM PST