Where's Virgie?
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In June, 2014, at the Cave Research Foundation expedition to Carlsbad Caverns, an SD card (a memory card from a camera) was found in some rocks next to the trail. This article describes our efforts to locate the owner and return the contents to their rightful place. | In June, 2014, at the Cave Research Foundation expedition to Carlsbad Caverns, an SD card (a memory card from a camera) was found in some rocks next to the trail. This article describes our efforts to locate the owner and return the contents to their rightful place. | ||
Revision as of 23:34, 16 July 2014
In June, 2014, at the Cave Research Foundation expedition to Carlsbad Caverns, an SD card (a memory card from a camera) was found in some rocks next to the trail. This article describes our efforts to locate the owner and return the contents to their rightful place.
The find
One day, during Restoration Field Camp, in June of 2014, was spent walking along the visitor trails and stopping to remove coins and other debris from pools located near the trail. We also took this time to pick up any obvious trash that had been left on or near the trail. While searching, Alec Payne notice an SD card in the rocks. After some discussion as to whether it might be historic (it obvious was not), we removed it.
At first, I tried to read the card by loading it into my camera. The camera thought the card to be unformatted. Tammy's laptop has an SD reader on it; so, I used it when we got back to the research huts. It did not even recognized that the card existed; but, after cleaning and scraping the contacts, I was able to get the laptop to read the card sporadically.
The card contained a collection of photographs and videos from all over the word dated from 2003 or 2004 to December of 2005. The last few photographs are some dark images from inside Carlsbad Caverns. It seems that the card got full and the owner removed it (probably to replace it with a new card) and either dropped it or temporarily placed it in the rocks and forgot it or could not find it again. The card had been in the cave for 8 1/2 years before being found.
A first look
On first examination of the photographs and videos, a few things are noticed right away.
Most of the photographs on the card are named "Virgie in Japan" followed by an incrementing integer starting with 1. Most of the people shown in the photos are of an oriental race. The photographer appears to be not very skilled as there are: several shots of the ground near the photographer; a number of seconds long videos of the ground; poorly framed shots; and very dark shots in the caverns. The photographs are from all over the world and appear to document various trips to some disparate places. The photographs could be valuable to the owner and we reason that "she" would like to have them back.
Determining the places
Scrolling through the photos, a number of places that the photographs were taken can be identified. Matching that with the date from the camera setting, we can build this timeline.
- Tokyo Japan: 10/05/2004 - 10/09/2004
- Seoul Korea: 10/10/2004 - 10/11/2004
- (time gap)
- Unknown group at a house: 11/09/2004
- (time gap)
- Unknown Christmas: 12/23/2004
- (time gap)
- Unknown dinner: 03/20/2005
- Turkey: 03/22/2005 - 03/29/2005
- Singapore: 03/30/2005 - 03/31/2005
- Unknown birthday: 04/02/2005 - 04/03/2005
- (time gap)
- Unknown Saguaro: 12/17/2005 - 12/18/2005
- White Sands: 12/18/2005
- Carlsbad Caverns: 12/19/2005
One woman appears in photographs from all of these places. We assume that she is Virgie.
