How to Solve a Mystery
Dale Netherton
April 11, 2006
Everyone has the ability to solve mysteries. Some are better at it than others. Some are better because they practice and some who practice are not so good. It is not practice alone that can get the job done. If a golfer practices and practices and doesn?t get better it is because his technique is flawed. Practicing the wrong technique only makes the problem worse. A piano player would not think of practicing techniques that included sour notes and flawed chords. Why should a person trying to solve mysteries ignore poor results? Yet the mystery sleuth has an easy out. He can always say something like ?there was not enough evidence? or ? we just didn?t have any leads?. Not that there couldn?t be a lack of evidence or a lack of leads, These excuses assume all was done with the known facts. And this supposes all theories ( i.e. solutions ) have been properly evaluated and prioritized by how well they fit the known evidence.
Let?s look at a normal ?mystery? that most people are confronted with at some time. Suppose you go out one morning and your car doesn?t start. You may simply contract with a mechanic to find out what is wrong with the car or you may have a little bit of do-it -yourself inclination and want to solve this puzzle yourself. At this point all you know is the car will not start. If you understand how a car operates you don?t check the tire pressure. You draw from your past experience and if nothing rings a bell you have to start an investigation into the unknown ( to you). Where do you start? You look at what is happening and what should be happening. If the engine is turning over rapidly you know the battery is okay. You know or you can find out that there are three things a gasoline engine requires to function. Fuel, spark and compression. Taking this a step at a time you check to see if there is fuel. You must discern if the fuel is ?good?. You then must determine if it is reaching the combustion chamber. If all of these steps check out you move on to the other two possibilities. Finally you find what is malfunctioning and you correct the problem by repairing the faulty condition. You have solved the problem. You did not assume it was the gas and dump it out and replace it and expect it to solve the problem. Had you done so you might have dumped out a very expensive commodity and solved nothing. You assumed nothing unless you had some specific clue i.e.lead, that would lead you to a quicker solution. For instance you may have noticed a crack in your distributor cap or a frayed spark plug wire which might be something you might want to check out first. If these obvious flaws seemed to be only red herrings you would ignore them and continue with your systematic search for a solution.
Other mysteries are susceptible to the same errors in investigation. And primarily they are the result of false assumptions. If you assume a person or organization could not possibly be involved in a cover-up, you may overlook exactly what you are looking for. Covering up is what criminals do when they have committed a crime. And if the criminal is a member of a government this does not negate the possibility of their involvement when nothing else is offered for a solution. This is why the Natalee Holloway case appears as an unsolvable case. The assumption has been that even though the laws of Aruba are different than what we are used to ,the meticulous method of investigation we rely on has been applied by the authorities in Aruba. The preponderance of evidence points to something more. In the example of the non starting car we pointed out how foolish it would be to make a false assumption. We left nothing out. We entered that mystery with an open mind considering that anything that could cause a car not to start must be considered. In the Natalee Holloway case it was not entered with an open mind. It was first assumed that she had been killed. No body, no evidence, bad assumption. Then it was assumed her body was buried or disposed of on the island. No body, no evidence of a remnant of body, nothing found. Bad assumption. Then it was assumed she passed out and her system failed. Nothing to substantiate this. Bad assumption. The book out by Dave Holloway points to possible corruption in the Aruba government and is based on specific instances and facts that confirm that this is not a scenario that should be discarded. Yet it has not been pursued nor given the priority that it obviously deserves. Someone ( particularly the media most involved in covering this investigation ) has made a very bad assumption that it is either too far fetched or it may restrict their access in some way or for whatever reason they do not want to ?go there?. If you assumed a car wouldn?t start because all you know about cars was that they had to have enough gas you would stop your investigation at checking the fuel level. And any subsequent inquiry about why your car wouldn?t start would be answered with ? but I?ve checked the fuel and there is plenty in the tank.? In the Natalee Holloway investigation what we are hearing is we are checking for a body but we haven?t found any. Notice the assumptions in both cases are false. Both assumptions ignore there could be other causes. Both issues are unresolved.
To solve a mystery you must consider all aspects of all the possibilities and reject only those that do not tie in with the known facts. There are no known facts that discount the possibility of Aruban government involvement. The facts do tie in with the possibility that the Aruban government ( either a corrupt official or more ) could have played a role in covering up the investigation and/ or had a role in the disappearance. If you have watched the TV interviews (and these have been softball interviews), the first time you heard anything about Aruba government corruption was last night mentioned in regard to Dave Holloway?s book. I urge you to read his book and integrate the information he is providing with what you know about bad assumptions, corruption and human trafficking. If the media wants to ignore a possible coverup by Aruban official(s), this doesn?t mean the public has to swallow their faulty assumptions. A girl doesn?t disappear without someone being responsible for her disappearance and to solve this mystery requires the first step of investigation protocol. Don?t assume you know what happened and don?t assume any one is innocent.
Let?s look at a normal ?mystery? that most people are confronted with at some time. Suppose you go out one morning and your car doesn?t start. You may simply contract with a mechanic to find out what is wrong with the car or you may have a little bit of do-it -yourself inclination and want to solve this puzzle yourself. At this point all you know is the car will not start. If you understand how a car operates you don?t check the tire pressure. You draw from your past experience and if nothing rings a bell you have to start an investigation into the unknown ( to you). Where do you start? You look at what is happening and what should be happening. If the engine is turning over rapidly you know the battery is okay. You know or you can find out that there are three things a gasoline engine requires to function. Fuel, spark and compression. Taking this a step at a time you check to see if there is fuel. You must discern if the fuel is ?good?. You then must determine if it is reaching the combustion chamber. If all of these steps check out you move on to the other two possibilities. Finally you find what is malfunctioning and you correct the problem by repairing the faulty condition. You have solved the problem. You did not assume it was the gas and dump it out and replace it and expect it to solve the problem. Had you done so you might have dumped out a very expensive commodity and solved nothing. You assumed nothing unless you had some specific clue i.e.lead, that would lead you to a quicker solution. For instance you may have noticed a crack in your distributor cap or a frayed spark plug wire which might be something you might want to check out first. If these obvious flaws seemed to be only red herrings you would ignore them and continue with your systematic search for a solution.
Other mysteries are susceptible to the same errors in investigation. And primarily they are the result of false assumptions. If you assume a person or organization could not possibly be involved in a cover-up, you may overlook exactly what you are looking for. Covering up is what criminals do when they have committed a crime. And if the criminal is a member of a government this does not negate the possibility of their involvement when nothing else is offered for a solution. This is why the Natalee Holloway case appears as an unsolvable case. The assumption has been that even though the laws of Aruba are different than what we are used to ,the meticulous method of investigation we rely on has been applied by the authorities in Aruba. The preponderance of evidence points to something more. In the example of the non starting car we pointed out how foolish it would be to make a false assumption. We left nothing out. We entered that mystery with an open mind considering that anything that could cause a car not to start must be considered. In the Natalee Holloway case it was not entered with an open mind. It was first assumed that she had been killed. No body, no evidence, bad assumption. Then it was assumed her body was buried or disposed of on the island. No body, no evidence of a remnant of body, nothing found. Bad assumption. Then it was assumed she passed out and her system failed. Nothing to substantiate this. Bad assumption. The book out by Dave Holloway points to possible corruption in the Aruba government and is based on specific instances and facts that confirm that this is not a scenario that should be discarded. Yet it has not been pursued nor given the priority that it obviously deserves. Someone ( particularly the media most involved in covering this investigation ) has made a very bad assumption that it is either too far fetched or it may restrict their access in some way or for whatever reason they do not want to ?go there?. If you assumed a car wouldn?t start because all you know about cars was that they had to have enough gas you would stop your investigation at checking the fuel level. And any subsequent inquiry about why your car wouldn?t start would be answered with ? but I?ve checked the fuel and there is plenty in the tank.? In the Natalee Holloway investigation what we are hearing is we are checking for a body but we haven?t found any. Notice the assumptions in both cases are false. Both assumptions ignore there could be other causes. Both issues are unresolved.
To solve a mystery you must consider all aspects of all the possibilities and reject only those that do not tie in with the known facts. There are no known facts that discount the possibility of Aruban government involvement. The facts do tie in with the possibility that the Aruban government ( either a corrupt official or more ) could have played a role in covering up the investigation and/ or had a role in the disappearance. If you have watched the TV interviews (and these have been softball interviews), the first time you heard anything about Aruba government corruption was last night mentioned in regard to Dave Holloway?s book. I urge you to read his book and integrate the information he is providing with what you know about bad assumptions, corruption and human trafficking. If the media wants to ignore a possible coverup by Aruban official(s), this doesn?t mean the public has to swallow their faulty assumptions. A girl doesn?t disappear without someone being responsible for her disappearance and to solve this mystery requires the first step of investigation protocol. Don?t assume you know what happened and don?t assume any one is innocent.
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