One week later….

Posted on by David
This time last week I was preparing to watch the Live Stream of the Kennedy Tree Group presenting their findings at Greta….but they had signal problems and it didn’t happen. Eventually they expect to post a Video recording of the event …so we wait with anticipation.
 

So lets just review where we have got to so far: 

 
The KTG claim is that this year they located the true site of the 1878 Police Camp by finding four trees at Stringybark Creek that can be seen in the 1878 photos of the place.  The two Burman photographs are the documents from which all their clues about what the site looked like are drawn from. They also claimed that the small hill people have seen in the near background of the photos is an illusion, that you can see a couple of post-and-rail fences in the photos, and also possibly remnants of a hut. They also claim to have found the tree where Kennedy was killed, 200 yards to the north. I still havent had time to look into that claim, because my interest has been in their claims about the police campsite.
 
In their responses to many of my questions during the week on their Facebook page, The Kennedy Tree group keep insisting that their case for the police campsite can only be understood if you go to Stringybark Creek and have a look for yourself.
 
My point all along – and it continues to be my point – is that what has to be decided before anything else, is what is actually seen in the photos. Working out whats actually seen in the photos is absolutely vital as the first step, and this has to be done with ruthless honesty. So if a branch does NOT have a direct connection to the trunk of a tree you CANNOT assume there is one, if you CANNOT see the trunk of a tree you CANNOT assume there is one and draw it onto the photo, if you find a tree thats where you wanted to find one but it looks completely different to the one you’ve described in the photo then you CANNOT say you’ve found the tree in the photo. If you find a tree with two trunks you CANNOT go back to the photo and say well that tree there must have two trunks. And if you think there is no slope, and find a place with no slope but your interpretation of the photo was wrong, you will have found the wrong site.

Ive discovered that my cause hasn’t been helped by the fact that images that look sharp on my 13″ MacBook Pro look a lot less sharp when seen on larger desktop screens, but the discussions about the post-and-rail fences is worth revisiting because it illustrates my other main point, which is that there is often more than one credible interpretation of what can be seen in them. Ive posted another close-up of that area above : I hope it is as clear on bigger screens as it is on mine.

 

I am as certain as I can be that what the KTG say are the rails of post-and-rail fences are actually slender saplings lying roughly parallel to each other at varying distances up a slope. Its quite obvious there are many exactly similar sized saplings standing up on that slope and some others are bending and leaning across to the right side. Imagine how those ones will look once they fall over completely : they will look exactly like the ‘rails’ of the fences. The ‘posts’ of the fences project well up above the ‘rails’ and well below them in some cases, and between them in others – not at all what you expect to see in a post-and-rail fence. The ‘posts’ are in fact other saplings and thin trees projecting upwards and creating the appearance of a grid, like a post-and-rail fence.

 

So yes, I can see what others are looking at, and think they are seeing post-and-rail fences, but I am certain they are mistaken.

Here is something I posted to the KTG Facebook page a couple of days ago, that they haven’t responded to – so I am asking it again here:

“I am not asking you to agree with my view but with the idea that for all of these things that you claim, other explanations are possible. I think you should also agree that it cant be valid to make a case based on things that aren’t actually seen – such as one trunk hidden behind another.

So I would like to know if you are certain that no other interpretation of those lines is possible other than that they ARE a post-and -rail fence, that there is no other possible explanation of where that short glimpse of a branch goes other than to the trunk of PC1 even though the connection isn’t actually visible , that there is no other possible explanation of the ‘pixelated’ area than that it is a shrub, that no other explanation is possible for the ‘starburst effect’ than that it belongs to a tree 72 yards away, that there is no other explanation possible for PC2 other than that it has two trunks even though they cant be seen….”

 
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One Reply to “One week later….”

  1. Bill says: Reply
    31/12/2019 at 5:30 pm

    I thought it appropriate to post my explanation why the KTG team may have seen a Post & Rail fence in the Burman photo1. Its well known that dots (called rasters) forming a printed photo can look pretty good in a quality printed book like Keith McMenony’s –Ned Kelly ed 2001. But once these images are scanned by another systems having smaller or larger pixels the two systems of dots clash overlapping creating interference patterns.

    I will explain how the KTG team have fallen for the trap of seeing things that are the result of pixelisation.
    See my You Tube video, its a pretty well off the cuff unprofessional production but consider I’m talking direct to you with sputters ums and ahs.
    https://youtu.be/30n4_eh1lG0

    To see a critique of the Kennedy Tree Group report see this my webpage with lots of images
    http://www.ironicon.com.au/de-fencing-the-ktg-report.htm

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