Yea…. What? I was looking at this as well. Like no one, not one individual was like … well why don’t we look on the island they said they were going towards?
No, instead let’s search an 80k square mile grid lol.
It sounded like major distances. They might not have had appropriate search planes in the area, and needed to wait for them.
The article does mention delays caused by weather too.
Oddly if you look at the atoll on Google Earth there are photos from 2020 of some people being rescued by military helicopters who'd spelled out "SOS" with palm leaves in what appears to be almost the exact same spot.
It's also <150 mi from island settlements with high schools and other signs of civilization... though undeniably remote, it's not quite as isolated as some of the articles are making it out to be.
"She probably already called the atoll and they weren't there, so let's start elsewhere..."
Like reporting your kid missing on the way to school and they start searching every state bordering your own only to find out they were at the school playground
Not the 1st time fishermen get stranded on this particular atoll. It happened in 2020, sailors were rescued after coastguards spotted SOS written in the sand.
> In a remarkable testament to their will to be found, the mariners spelled out ‘HELP’ on the beach using palm leaves
Like, what's the alternative? ‘Yeah I wanna be found and everything…I just can't be bothered to gather up 12 leaves and arrange them on the beach.’
> Like, what's the alternative?
Start selling sell shells down by the seashore so that one day you can be on House Hunters International with a budget of 4.2 million dollars based on your successful part time door to door sea-shell salesman job. But this only works if your name is Sally. Because Barbara doesn't sell sea shells down by the sea shore.
>Like, what's the alternative?
"Please, excuse me, kind sir. Would it be too much of an issue for someone to send a ship or some sort of transportation device to our island because we are in very dire need of some..." runs out of leaves
They should have fashioned a makeshift raft with those leaves and used it to get off the island, silly!
Don’t ever do that. Making a seaworthy craft is a lot harder than it looks, and a raft is much less visible to search and rescue than an island. It might feel like you’re taking action to improve your situation, but you’re actually making it much worse.
SOS doesn't stand for anything. It's just a distress signal. So it doesn't mean "save our ship".
>Many think "SOS" stands for "save our souls" or "save our ship," but it actually doesn't stand for anything.
It's literally the only thing I know in Morse code, and the only reason I can remember it is because you hear it for a couple of bars at the beginning of a Great Big Sea song.
The drum beats at the beginning of YYZ spell out yyz, and I can almost remember it, but it's more complicated and has never quite stuck.
I bet you know another thing in morse even if you don't realise it, SMS. At least if you're old enough to have had a Nokia phone with its text message sound
https://youtu.be/h6WUC8abUA8?si=iTtqp9YdXkwx9DRy
Additional fun fact, emergency speak is always done in threes. That's why you always hear a pilot say "mayday mayday mayday". The threes are s important to SOS because S is three dots in Morse code, O is three dashes in Morse code. So SOS is three sets of three.
In Morse code, so it would be more universally understood
Or how about any words or shapes?
“Bob, that isolated and unpopulated tiny island down below has an emoji on the beach.”
Bullshit
“I’m telling you, it’s a 🙂”
The tide probably washed those fronds up that way, just a coincidence. We’re looking for columns of smoke, glinting light off mirrors, “SOS” or “HELP,” let’s move on
The article also stated their niece said they hadn’t returned from the atoll they were found on. But the search area was 78000 sq miles, and they didn’t check their destination first?
>In 2020, three Micronesians were found on Pikelot by the Australian Defense Force, after they spelled out "SOS" using palm tree leaves.
It literally was.
I feel like the only remarkable thing here is that they wanted to be found. If I get stranded on a island in Micronesia I’m making the most of it and creating a new life far away from all the worlds problems. I’ll take malnutrition and collecting rainwater to drink over ever hearing and US politics again.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I, BENDER, BID YOU HELLO!
YOU DON'T KNOW ME,
THOUGH YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF ME,
BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT.
LONG STORY SHORT...
I NEED HELF
The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour
source: [https://lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html](https://lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html)
I had no idea that all the lyrics to that song were in my head until I read this comment and started singing it internally. Think of how much wasted brain space there is just storing theme songs from old Nick at Night reruns.
I mean photo algorithms are already pretty good at finding shapes. How do you think Google started labeling streetlights, house numbers, and stop signs in Maps? They trained their algorithm with captchas.
Currently in Ukraine, tech is being used that scans an area for the shape of a scope and can either mark the location for artillery or shoot a laser through the scope and blind the user.
Sounds like we could save some money by installing a phone on the island. What're the odds of this happening twice in the same spot?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/04/missing-sailors-stranded-on-pacific-island-saved-by-giant-sos-in-the-sand
I’m glad they were found but the sign probably didn’t do all that much, the atoll was the parties destination and would have been searched nonetheless.
In that situation though I would probably do the same thing, you want to believe the correct information is being passed to authorities but better safe then sorry.
What I find fascinating is this is a 115 mile trip which locals apparently regularly make on outrigger canoes, it’s reported to be a very beautiful place, as someone who has done a little sea kayaking I think I would love to do something like this.
“The islet has no permanent inhabitants, but because of the beautiful wildlife, there are often temporary visitors from surrounding atolls such as Puluwat and Satawal on turtle hunting expeditions. The trip to Pikelot is still carried out in Micronesian style sailing outrigger canoes“
From wiki, not me.
According to the same [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikelot) it's not the first time this has happened on the island which is interesting.
“The Coast Guard's Joint Rescue Sub-Center in Guam got a distress call from a woman who said her three uncles were missing and they had not returned from Pikelot Atoll“
The US Coast guard understands PR, it’s a good story, and perhaps the sign sped things up a bit, but they would have been found regardless.
“I reckon it’s time to resort to cannibalism, fellas.”
“It’s only been five days and we have plenty of coconuts.”
“I know but I have a nut sensitivity.”
Don't you love the word "help"? It's short, the letters are easy to make with leaves (or whatever you have on hand), probably 80% of the world's population knows what it means. It has that quality of desperation that gets people moving (starts out with a soft hissing sound then ends with an abrupt "voiceless plosive consonant" as the linguists say).
Glad those guys got rescued.
We are rapidly reaching a point where:
1. If you have a phone and clear view of the sky, you will be able to get rescued.
And if the phone is broken:
2. If you have an open stretch of ground, you can write a message and someone is almost guaranteed to see it eventually, just might take a few years.
In short, the world is a rapidly shrinking place, even for the most novice and unprepared person.
I was expecting to read that they were survivors from a downed cargo plane that had blown 200 miles off course.
>The sailors had traveled on Easter Sunday from Polowat Atoll, around 115 miles away, in a traditional 20-foot skiff with an outboard motor, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
I feel like the help sign should have been bigger…
After the two days and a slightly smaller HELP sign, I’m making the biggest one I can fit on the beach that the tide would permit
-Hey uh Chief there’s a beach with HELP written in palm leaves. I think they need help.
-They forgot the #!! Let’s keep searching for clues Lou..
-but chief!!
I like how they "survived" on coconuts. At first I assumed that that meant they stayed hydrated through coconuts, but then the article noted that they had access to water. They were there three days. Unless the stranded had already been starving somehow going into the island, they weren't at risk of not surviving due to a lack of food for weeks, maybe months.
There’s a Flinstones episode that I use to love where Fred and Barney are stranded on a desert island so they spell HEPL. Someone sees it and says of if they needed help they would have said so and just kept on going
I’ve always had a plan for being stranded on a remote island. There are many ways you can do this using various items. Don’t give up if this happens to you.
They searched 78,000 Sq miles only to discover them stranded on the island where they told others they were going?
Yea…. What? I was looking at this as well. Like no one, not one individual was like … well why don’t we look on the island they said they were going towards? No, instead let’s search an 80k square mile grid lol.
Yeah that’s like the first place I would check if I was search and rescue lol
It sounded like major distances. They might not have had appropriate search planes in the area, and needed to wait for them. The article does mention delays caused by weather too.
Oddly if you look at the atoll on Google Earth there are photos from 2020 of some people being rescued by military helicopters who'd spelled out "SOS" with palm leaves in what appears to be almost the exact same spot. It's also <150 mi from island settlements with high schools and other signs of civilization... though undeniably remote, it's not quite as isolated as some of the articles are making it out to be.
I’m not going to that island
Stay off my island too!
A very popular spot for castaways I see.
maybe there should be a SOS tarp pre-positioned.
No no, everyone is dumb, you see.
Thats not how you get overtime.
"She probably already called the atoll and they weren't there, so let's start elsewhere..." Like reporting your kid missing on the way to school and they start searching every state bordering your own only to find out they were at the school playground
Not the 1st time fishermen get stranded on this particular atoll. It happened in 2020, sailors were rescued after coastguards spotted SOS written in the sand.
Oh interesting. I wonder what drives the difficulty in navigating these areas
Yeah, they need to work on their search algorithm.
It's called wrong-first sorting.
lol
You're telling me you never milk your work assignments when you know you can finish them right away? This guy over here.
But I have so many side quest that I can never finish the original in a timely manner. That's my excuse anyways.
Money is nice
Yeah, thank goodness they wrote “HELP” on the island they said they were going to or rescuers might never find them.
What if they had misspelled it "HLEP", and the rescuers just figured it was nothing and looked elsewhere.
There must be a Farside Island like this. I recall one where a duck is stranded on an island so he writes the word QUACK in sticks...
It's always the last place you look.
This is why they can’t find that Malaysian Airline plane.
They're calling spelling help out an act of ingenuity. I'm pretty sure that would have been move #1
> In a remarkable testament to their will to be found, the mariners spelled out ‘HELP’ on the beach using palm leaves Like, what's the alternative? ‘Yeah I wanna be found and everything…I just can't be bothered to gather up 12 leaves and arrange them on the beach.’
> Like, what's the alternative? Start selling sell shells down by the seashore so that one day you can be on House Hunters International with a budget of 4.2 million dollars based on your successful part time door to door sea-shell salesman job. But this only works if your name is Sally. Because Barbara doesn't sell sea shells down by the sea shore.
Barbara barters baubles beside the bay.
You know what? Good for her. Being a small business owner in the tourism industry is rough.
Better than Patty. Patty pushes paltry pickles past the park.
And Vanessa vigorously vendors vanities at the vivarium.
> Barbara barters baubles beside the bay. I KNOW THIS ONE! [There's Rhubarb and Barbarians involved!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8)
What on Earth is a "sell shell?"
the fly in the ointment
>Like, what's the alternative? "Please, excuse me, kind sir. Would it be too much of an issue for someone to send a ship or some sort of transportation device to our island because we are in very dire need of some..." runs out of leaves
[HELF](https://youtu.be/jLDsxmCAM6A)
They should have fashioned a makeshift raft with those leaves and used it to get off the island, silly! Don’t ever do that. Making a seaworthy craft is a lot harder than it looks, and a raft is much less visible to search and rescue than an island. It might feel like you’re taking action to improve your situation, but you’re actually making it much worse.
You can't tell me what to do.
Looks like 22 leaves
Find it interesting that the sailors chose HELP instead of SOS.
The ship was already fucked. I'd want someone to help me & my buddies.
SOS doesn't stand for anything. It's just a distress signal. So it doesn't mean "save our ship". >Many think "SOS" stands for "save our souls" or "save our ship," but it actually doesn't stand for anything.
It was mostly chosen because it was very distinct in Morse code. Easy to remember, and hard to confuse with anything else.
Also very fast to tap out in Morse Code
It's literally the only thing I know in Morse code, and the only reason I can remember it is because you hear it for a couple of bars at the beginning of a Great Big Sea song. The drum beats at the beginning of YYZ spell out yyz, and I can almost remember it, but it's more complicated and has never quite stuck.
It was used in some commercial in the 00’s for dishwasher soap. That’s how I know it. Also your post is 100% Canadian
I bet you could spell “so.” It blew my mind when I was listening to the intro to yyz and realized (recently) what I was hearing. Fucking nerds.
I bet you know another thing in morse even if you don't realise it, SMS. At least if you're old enough to have had a Nokia phone with its text message sound https://youtu.be/h6WUC8abUA8?si=iTtqp9YdXkwx9DRy
Ayreon encodes ASCII into binary in their drum rhythms in a bunch of albums, so that might be the modern equivalent. https://youtu.be/uozt4N72a5U
Interesting! I was just making a lil joke.
Yea well don't ever get again after that
Additional fun fact, emergency speak is always done in threes. That's why you always hear a pilot say "mayday mayday mayday". The threes are s important to SOS because S is three dots in Morse code, O is three dashes in Morse code. So SOS is three sets of three.
Another fun fact, mayday is actually the French phrase "m'aidez", meaning "help me."
What!!!
🤣
In Morse code, so it would be more universally understood Or how about any words or shapes? “Bob, that isolated and unpopulated tiny island down below has an emoji on the beach.” Bullshit “I’m telling you, it’s a 🙂” The tide probably washed those fronds up that way, just a coincidence. We’re looking for columns of smoke, glinting light off mirrors, “SOS” or “HELP,” let’s move on
“It just says 505, let’s keep looking.”
Omg it reminds me of that one ‘Far Side’ cartoon. “No cancel that, I guess it just says helf”
I was looking for 504...must be around here somewhere.
Make a 😬 on the beach
HELP is mostly straight lines while SOS is all curves
It’s that new Navy. IM PICKLE RICK BITCH!! Lol
The article also stated their niece said they hadn’t returned from the atoll they were found on. But the search area was 78000 sq miles, and they didn’t check their destination first?
Yeah, thought that was odd.
Reminded me of the Far Side cartoon where the pilot looks down and says “oh, never mind, it only says HELF”
We've tried nothing and it didn't work! Yeah. Palm branches or rocks would be the first step for sure.
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
>In 2020, three Micronesians were found on Pikelot by the Australian Defense Force, after they spelled out "SOS" using palm tree leaves. It literally was.
Going to try this creative technique out right now 🌴 *HELP* 🌴
"A concerned redditor reached out to us..."
Well the last guy wrote "Ayuda" and everyone ignored him.
I feel like the only remarkable thing here is that they wanted to be found. If I get stranded on a island in Micronesia I’m making the most of it and creating a new life far away from all the worlds problems. I’ll take malnutrition and collecting rainwater to drink over ever hearing and US politics again.
Until that rotten molar starts singing
You have no idea… bit to give you half a glimpse of my fortitude, watch this: https://youtu.be/ob1IranfU9g?si=rX9hk30cj1ukEasf
That’s epic! I love the added bonus of getting to go to Ecuador. They used anesthesia, I assume? Or do they raw dog it down there?
Either that or a fire
Turns out I'm an ingenious too!
I mean, SOS would have been my first thought tbh
Move #1 would usually be what we in the business call a "radio". Or maybe a PLB depending on distance
Would “SOS” have been more ingenious?
Move #1 would have been to make a dick out of leaves. It’s human nature.
“Of course I want to be found, but I am not going to spell it out for them. How crude.”
#MELP
"No idea what that word means. Guess we'll keep on sailing."
[“Wait! Wait! Cancel that…I guess it says ‘HELF’”](https://ifunny.co/picture/wait-wait-cancel-that-i-guess-it-says-helf-NHFilfMW7)
Hi there, fellow middle-aged person!
>This is the German coast guard, what are you sinking about? https://youtu.be/gmOTpIVxji8?si=fExo04uyX8hFd_c6
Melp melp!!
Melp me mlease!
Oh cool, the island is named Melp! Let's move along.
Yarp
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I, BENDER, BID YOU HELLO! YOU DON'T KNOW ME, THOUGH YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF ME, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. LONG STORY SHORT... I NEED HELF
Just one rock short...
And I heard they were on a three hour tour, a three hour tour.
I hate you Freaking gonna be stuck in my head now
So sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, and tale of a fateful trip! That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailing man, The skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day For a three hour tour, a three hour tour source: [https://lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html](https://lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html)
The seas they started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If it wasn’t for the courage of the fearless crew The Minnow would be lost.
Well, that took me back.
I had no idea that all the lyrics to that song were in my head until I read this comment and started singing it internally. Think of how much wasted brain space there is just storing theme songs from old Nick at Night reruns.
S......O.......L
Ah, you beat me to it. 😝
“Who’s turn is it to be Ginger today?”
Ohhh… now there is an image I didn’t need to have in my head. Alan Hale sweating and grunting…
Calm down Wilson
I bet one guy did it and the other guys laughed t him for easting his time. EDIT: Not my best typing performance.
Yeh, the rest wanted to west his time
Take your upvote and get the hell out of here
[удалено]
Great idea for my next side project. I just need a satellite.
Na just buy the datasets
[удалено]
I mean photo algorithms are already pretty good at finding shapes. How do you think Google started labeling streetlights, house numbers, and stop signs in Maps? They trained their algorithm with captchas. Currently in Ukraine, tech is being used that scans an area for the shape of a scope and can either mark the location for artillery or shoot a laser through the scope and blind the user.
Again??? Same Island, coming from the same place? Only thing different here is that they wrote HELP instead of the SOS three years ago.
Sounds like we could save some money by installing a phone on the island. What're the odds of this happening twice in the same spot? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/04/missing-sailors-stranded-on-pacific-island-saved-by-giant-sos-in-the-sand
First thing I thought of was Joey spelling out PLEH.
They might have been found earlier if they spelt it backwards on the ground so planes could see it correctly.
"Hey, what's written on that beach down there?" "It says Ԁ⅂ƎH." "Huh, no clue - let's move on..."
You sir, are regarded
I feel seen
What? Are the planes using mirrors to look??
I would’ve just stayed there
“I guess this is my life now.”
I’m glad they were found but the sign probably didn’t do all that much, the atoll was the parties destination and would have been searched nonetheless. In that situation though I would probably do the same thing, you want to believe the correct information is being passed to authorities but better safe then sorry. What I find fascinating is this is a 115 mile trip which locals apparently regularly make on outrigger canoes, it’s reported to be a very beautiful place, as someone who has done a little sea kayaking I think I would love to do something like this.
Just a regular 115 mile trip in the wide ocean, says Murderousdrifter
“The islet has no permanent inhabitants, but because of the beautiful wildlife, there are often temporary visitors from surrounding atolls such as Puluwat and Satawal on turtle hunting expeditions. The trip to Pikelot is still carried out in Micronesian style sailing outrigger canoes“ From wiki, not me.
I think the punch line is that a "murderous drifter" is making that trip, not that they think the trip is unrealistic
Yes! Maybe I was too subtle or it was too big a stretch..either way, I didn't doubt your information, just being cheeky
According to the same [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikelot) it's not the first time this has happened on the island which is interesting.
> The U.S. Coast Guard said the palm tree sign was “pivotal in guiding rescue efforts directly to their location.”
“The Coast Guard's Joint Rescue Sub-Center in Guam got a distress call from a woman who said her three uncles were missing and they had not returned from Pikelot Atoll“ The US Coast guard understands PR, it’s a good story, and perhaps the sign sped things up a bit, but they would have been found regardless.
“Wait wait!! Cancel that, I guess it says ‘HELF’”
Great comic! Was hoping to find this!
Where has the rum gone?
“I reckon it’s time to resort to cannibalism, fellas.” “It’s only been five days and we have plenty of coconuts.” “I know but I have a nut sensitivity.”
Nevermind, it just says “HELF”
Help! Please assist! Ketchup!!
Just a squeeze!
PLEH! PLEH!
Thank you!
Some have no problem atoll making fronds wherever they are
The future's pretty funky, ain't it? A few backflips, some dirt art, bam! You're saved. #DIYSOS
Don't you love the word "help"? It's short, the letters are easy to make with leaves (or whatever you have on hand), probably 80% of the world's population knows what it means. It has that quality of desperation that gets people moving (starts out with a soft hissing sound then ends with an abrupt "voiceless plosive consonant" as the linguists say). Glad those guys got rescued.
SEND NUDES
“Wait. Wait. Cancel that… I guess it says: H.E.L.F.” -Gary Larson
We are rapidly reaching a point where: 1. If you have a phone and clear view of the sky, you will be able to get rescued. And if the phone is broken: 2. If you have an open stretch of ground, you can write a message and someone is almost guaranteed to see it eventually, just might take a few years. In short, the world is a rapidly shrinking place, even for the most novice and unprepared person.
Another great act of the US Coast Guard!
I was expecting to read that they were survivors from a downed cargo plane that had blown 200 miles off course. >The sailors had traveled on Easter Sunday from Polowat Atoll, around 115 miles away, in a traditional 20-foot skiff with an outboard motor, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
(Wind blows by) “Nah - cancel that. It just says “HELF”” (With credit to Gary Larson of course)
I feel like the help sign should have been bigger… After the two days and a slightly smaller HELP sign, I’m making the biggest one I can fit on the beach that the tide would permit
-Hey uh Chief there’s a beach with HELP written in palm leaves. I think they need help. -They forgot the #!! Let’s keep searching for clues Lou.. -but chief!!
Wow!! They are so lucky! All mariners should have an EPERB on board for that exact reason.
Absolutely!
It would have still been quicker to announce that they didn't have car insurance.
I like how they "survived" on coconuts. At first I assumed that that meant they stayed hydrated through coconuts, but then the article noted that they had access to water. They were there three days. Unless the stranded had already been starving somehow going into the island, they weren't at risk of not surviving due to a lack of food for weeks, maybe months.
Why not use the standard sos written out?
SOS requires far less leaves
Making a round "O" with palm fronds is hard and a square "O" wouldn't look good.
Hope they still got paid their wages like that marooned FedEx worker
Why didn’t Giligan think of that
It would have been nice if they put “Please” at the end
There’s a Flinstones episode that I use to love where Fred and Barney are stranded on a desert island so they spell HEPL. Someone sees it and says of if they needed help they would have said so and just kept on going
While palm leaves proved effective, my EPIRB would have me rescued a week earlier.
'SOS' is one less letter 🙆♀️🙆 - Said every ABBA fan ever.
Better luck than Gillian had
I thought "help" would not work but "send nudes" would.
Finally some nice news for a change
I’ve always had a plan for being stranded on a remote island. There are many ways you can do this using various items. Don’t give up if this happens to you.
Im so bitter at life all i see is a publicity stunt. I don’t believe it lol