Desperate Theories.

It was perhaps a combition of hysteria and hoaxers that kept hopes alive in the following days when it was clear that something had befallen the Endeavour and its brave crew. One of the incidents that must have lead to the most appalling high and then low for the families of Hinchliffe and Mackay was about the report of a plane going down near Greenville in Maine. A Mr Dean of Hollingsworth and Whitney, a paper company in the town, said he had received reports that a large plane had been seen landing about 25 miles northeast of the town. This sighting appeared to be confirmed by a man and his wife who droving into the town later saying they'd seen a plane descending into woods. The story was given so much credence that it was communicated to the US Secretary of State Frank B Kellog who contacted the British government to say that the navy would be lending 'all possible assistance in locating the plane.' However some experts believed that the sightings were more likely to be of the Bellance monoplane belonging to Commander Richard E Byrd which was being tested in the area for a flight to the south pole. Commander Byrd was another transatlantic flyer who had crossed from west to east in the summer of 1927. He had been one of several aviators attempting to win the Orteig Prize for the first non-stop flight between the US and France. During a practice take-off his Fokker Trimotor 'America' had crashed leaving him with minor injuries but his chief pilot Floyd Bennett severely injured. While the plane was being repaired Charles Lindbergh famously achieved the flight and took the honours. There were also rumours that a Royal Canadian Air Force observer had seen the wreckage of a plane and two bodies near Island Falls in the Whitecap Mountains but this proved to be a cruel hoax carried out by local lumber men.

One newspaper splashed this headline after one of the more plausible reports 

As news of the weather conditions at sea began to emerge it became increasingly clear that the aviators had faced difficult odds. Storms in mid ocean and the notorious turbulence around the area of the Grand Banks combined with vast ice floes which had lowered the temperature further. The Adelaide News reported that 'wintry squalls or ice forming on the wings of the aeroplane probably brought disaster when the aviators were still several hundred miles off Newfoundland or Labrador or even on an ice pack if their fueld vanished before they could reach land." There was also a suggestion that the Aurora Borealis, visible over Newfoundland at the time, could have affected the Endeavour's compass. The last vestige of hope could only exist if the flyers had managed to come down on ice and been found by local people which had been the case with two Canadian airmen who had been rescued by an Inuit guide who led them on an eight day sixty mile trek in freezing temperatures. Such ideas were more to do with desperation than any real belief that Hinchliffe and Mackay would be found.