Really Random : You Can Use "Google Earth" to Help Search for Missing Gazillionaire Steve Fossett

There's a kinda neat development in the ongoing search for aviator, sailor, and adventurer extraordinaire Steve Fossett, whose plane (and self) have been missing for over a week now. Unfortunately, intensive searches on air and land have turned up no sign of Fossett or his plane.(On the + side, at least 6 other previously undiscovered crashed planes have been found during this search, so obviously they're really, really looking hard...)

The neat thing is that Google Earth has gotten together with "Amazon Mechanical Turk"(?), aka "Artificial Artificial Intelligence", and they've got a state-of-the-art, help-search-for-Steve-Fossett high-tech global effort going, with newly updated satellite images of the entire Fossett search area mapoped into grids, so everyone who can get online can join in the aerial search for Fossett's plane. And of course there's a website to report whatever you find to.

Well, it beats playing video games, doesn't it? I mean, this is real... the challenge of a real hunt for a real missing person, and with zero cost, risk, or travel. And you could literally save someone's life, without risking heat stroke, snakebite, or getting lost yourself. And if that's not enough incentive to pitch in and look, consider that whoever finds this very tough, resourceful gazillionaire is bound to get a lovely "thank you" gift, like an island or something...

The best way to get into this search (or to just read about it) is to first follow this link~ http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/help_find_steve_fosset_with_google.html
...which will also send you to this next one, which has examples of exactly what to look for http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=9TSZK4G35XEZJZG21T60&kw=Flash

I'd also suggest reading some of the brief comments at the bottom of that first web page, both for information and inspiration, since several people seem to have spotted things on the images already that might be planes and might be worth checking out. Their posts give the longitude and latitude of whatever-it-is they've spotted, so we can see what they've found too.

Unfortunately, because Mr. Fossett was scouting dry lake beds as a possible location for a future attempt to break the world's land speed record of 766.6 mph, he didn't file a flight plan. But we do know that he'd only planned a quick flight, and more importantly, we know his point of origin for the flight, an airstrip at billionaire hotel magnate Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, some 70 miles SE of Reno, in a single-engine plane. So he should be somewhere around there... BTW, this particular "Barron Hilton" is Paris Hilton's grandfather. Big woop.

Fossett's plane, a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon similar to the one below, was equipped with a locator that sends an automatic satellite signal after a rough landing.

In what seemed at first like a possibly good sign, officials said they had picked up no such locator signals from the plane, indicating that there may have been no rough landing to trigger it...but there have been no radio communication either, which is less hopeful. And even if the plane locator failed, Fossett usually wears a $5K Breitling Emergency watch that allows pilots to easily signal their location. And so far, there had been no word of such a signal from Fossett, which is even more worrying. But maybe he's in a really deep ravine that's out of range of any signal...

Google Earth is one of my favorite places to hang out anyway, and this morning I've been looking over the search area, mostly western Nevada along the California border, and I must say that the area looks a lot more interesting than I would have thought, topographically. (Never having been there myself.)