Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Stradbroke Island Galleon

I did contribute to the Stradbroke Island Galleon article - but I do not support for one moment Jeffreys' interpretation that the wreck allegedly seen in the Swan Bay swamp area by several people is a Spanish galleon (or the wreck of some other "pre-Cook" ship) I added the bit about the recent 'debunking' -by Aboriginal elder Bob Anderson- of the Spanish galleon claim and the bit about the claim not being supported by mainstream academics; and gave the alternative suggestion for what it could be : cattle barge or mid 19 C timber-getter. As Senior Curator Maritime Heritage at the Queensland Museum (so I guess I am one of Jeffreys' "mainstream academic" gadflies) I am quite prepared to accept that there is a wreck of some description in the swamp, but think it much more likely that it is associated with a vessel of a mid 19th C timber-getter, wrecked at sea, that subsequently broke up in the surf and pieces of it were washed up into the swamp by a storm surge; or it is a cattle barge (as Anderson was told by other Aboriginal elders when he was a boy) PGes (talk) 22:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

My nose isn't 'out of joint' because Jefferys has written a book about his pet theory - as a professional historian (museum curator) I merely have been pointing out that there are many more very prosaic explanations to account for the alleged presence of the so-called 'galleon' - Not in the least that the guy who first claimed he saw it ca. 1880 mistook it for one! I'm much more inclined to believe what Aboriginal elders saw and have said it was. (i.e. an old cattle barge)  If anyone has his nose out of joint, it seems to me it's Jefferys, because no 'mainstream academic archaeologists' want to join forces with him to prove otherwise; he'd rather persist in making silly claims that it's a conspiracy by the 'mainstream clique'  to protect their interests against his! PGes (talk) 08:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)