the significance of 10-31-99

[HPhack]

I was trying to think of where I could be useful, and there's one thing you folks have always had questions about that I probably sent the message I didn't want to talk about. I've definitely been defensive about it, but only because once upon a time lots of sleezy tabloids wanted to interview "the survivor". None of them really wanted to hear what I had to say, they just wanted me to play the role of someone who narrowly escaped whatever horrible fate their other experts would speculate about. It made me bitter for a long time, and I need to learn to let that go.

I'm still not sure I believe that what happened in 1999 is related to what we're going through now, but there are enough eerie coincidences that I understand why people are interested.

I guess the best place to start is the picnic the expedition had the Sunday before we left, on October 24th. That's when I got hurt, it really wasn't that bad, just a few bruised ribs. Sometimes even "touch" football can get a little rough. Adrianna made a pretty convincing argument that night (while I was still hopped up on some nice pain pills) that taking a chance of re-injuring it spelunking away from any kind of medical care was stupid.

On Monday morning, I went in to tell Dr. Bhaskaracharaya that they should find a replacement for me on the team. Miles was in the grad student office, prepping for his next 101 lecture, and immediately popped his head in and said he'd be interested. She asked me to bring Miles up to speed, but to be honest, there wasn't much to explain. My role was just barely more advanced than being a Sherpa. Whatever the physics team was doing required alot of very high speed data capture from a variety of sensors -- those went into a rack-mount patch bay with redundant serial outputs that went to both disk arrays (not my responsibility) and to a feed to satelite (which was the real P.I.T.A and also not my responsibility.) I got to teach Miles' 101 classload instead of being the expedition cable monkey.

Adrianna left with the rest of the crew on Friday, the plane tickets where to D.C. and then they were supposed to drive west to some god-foresaken little town to spend the night. The next morning, October 30th, that would have been the day they started their descent into the cave system. That was going to be a 2 day descent, a day of experiments, followed up a 2 day ascent. Five days underground with no real contact to the outside world except when that satelite link was live.

When no data came streaming out of the hole on November 1 as expected, everyone assumed there must have been damaged equipment or something similar. There was still no contact from the expedition on November 3rd, when they should have completed their ascent. That's when the rumors really started flying around campus, rumors that the University had called the local authorities for search and rescue. Those rumors continued to spread for days until the media finally grabbed ahold of it November 8, the morning after volunteer spelunkers had located the team's basecamp in a cave system called Taylor Run. Once the "University Researchers Lost in Cave" headlines started flowing, the Feds moved in and took over the search.

There were still lots of problems with radio communications and with the fact that these caves weren't known too well, even the spelunkers who had been there hadn't mapped much of it yet. Alot of people risked their lives looking for them, though. My real complaints have always been with the media coverage, they just wanted to milk the story for every ounce of attention and speculation they could possibly wring from it.

They gave up the search the week of Thanksgiving, about three weeks after they started. Authorities said they had explored up to a two-day depth from the basecamp, but found no signs of the missing gear or people. The major media pressure had let up anyway (no one wanted a depressing story for Thanksgiving) and the new media quickly focused after that on the fears of Y2K blackouts interrupting Dick Clark or something. But the tragedy had its own more lurid press coverage, dominated by the tasteless tabloid sleeze and all their stupid speculation. Check out isle "journalism" tucked in between miracle diet ads.

I didn't bother to re-enroll for school the next semester, there was just too much pressure and too much loss. I had to get out of Arkham, somewhere that I was reminded of all of that every day. I guess that was the beginning of learning to hide my head in the sand.

Why is any of this even relevant? I guess in part because the Lucky 5 code seems to count down things from October 31, 1999 (which could be completely coincidental), in part because some of those tabloid rumors like to connect cults like Chorazos to what "really happened" (could also be coincidental), and in part because B.A. dreamed their names up from her nightmare (which seems harder to just write off).

I realize this isn't a ton of information, but at least it is all in one place now.
_________________
"Perhaps a longer stick is in order." - Unknown Quantity

[Dante]

Thanks for sharing this information, Howard. I'm sure that you really would rather not rehash all of this, but like you, I feel like there have been enough coincidences that it can't be avoided.

I'm sure I'll have more questions but for now I can only think of this:

When the rescuers found the basecamp, did it look like they had taken the experimental equipment with them? That is, does it seem like they could have actually gotten the experiment going? When was the satellite feed supposed to commence? Was the data capture being transmitted via the feed live or only after the data capture had already happened?

I guess I'm just trying to figure out whether their disappearance could be related to something going wrong with the experiment..

However, trying to pinpoint the timeline:

October 30: enter cave; Day 1 of descent
October 31: Day 2 of descent
November 1: Day of experiments
November 2: Day 1 of ascent
November 3: Day 2 of ascent; exit cave

So, if October 31 is the 'significant' date, this came a day before the planned day of experiments. Hrm...

[Noyb]

Thank you for sharing. I understand how hard this must be for you.

[HPhack]

[HPhack]

[Jjason]

[Biff]

[Dante]

Okay I think I asked this a long time ago, but I don't remember if it was answered:

Who chose this particular cave as the site for the experiments??


Also:

You said that Adrianna was one of the spelunking guides? Who were the other guides? What kind of spelunking experience did she have?

[Mapmaker]

[Biff]

[HPhack]

[Sinyx]

Thanks for telling your story Howard. I can't imagine how hard this is for you.

If the base camp was still set up, wouldn't this mean whatever happened occurred at their camp before they could pack up for the 2nd day of descent (early morning of the 31st). I know you once mentioned that the authorities insisted they fell down a shaft where their bodies slid out of view and deemed it an accident, but Taylor Run's been mapped now so wouldn't they have found some evidence? I can't imagine the whole crew accidentally falling down a crevice, and if they had continued hiking down they would have packed up their whole camp.

Only the expedition members and their important equipment was gone. This all sounds fishy to me, especially in light of everything that is happening now. Is there any chance they could have been followed and attacked by others? Or that some of the crew could have rebelled and did something to the remaining members?

I think checking the found hard drive for indications of it being from this expedition's a good idea.

[Biff]

[WolfHawk]

I want to add my thanks, Howard, for sharing the expedition information with us. I know it's hard.

[Sapagoo]