Talk:Palmyra Atoll

message: Is this the only island on earth to be controled by a government and owned by a private entity??
No.  There are other islands whose entire landmass is, under local property laws, owned by one individual or corporation.  Though, perhaps this is somewhat unique b/c it is so far away from other landmasses68.33.203.109 05:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What is so unique?

message: It was originally merged in from a stub article, but And the Sea Will Tell was getting to be a very large section, and as its significance had more to do with a book and Hawaiian media circus than an event in Palmyra's history, I moved it to its own article.
::-Nentuaby 01:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved out the murders and book

message: The picture of the islands airstrip looks very much like the same airstrip in the beginning of Jurassic Park III. If it is, maybe it could added in someway. Windscar77 07:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found no reference to this filming having been done in the Palmyra Atoll, though Hawaii was a location for the movie. This same reference lists Wendover, Utah as where an airstrip was filmed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Adavidb (talk • contribs) 06:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Trivia

message: I've removed the following two sentences, which contradict everything else in the article about Nature Conservancy and USFWS ownership:
"In July 1990, Peter Savio of Honolulu took a lease on the atoll until the year 2065 and formed the Palmyra Development Company.  When Savio took over the atoll he appointed Roger Lextrait caretaker of the island, and Lextrait lived there for 8 years."
The Roger Lextrait link is dead, and the Peter Savio link doesn't seem to even claim, let alone credibly claim, that he controls the atoll. MayerG (talk) 07:39, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added archive info for the Lextrait link (at a former blog site). —ADavidB 13:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Leased for private development till 2065?

message: "Its 9 mi (14 km) of coastline" Coastlines got no length as they are fractals. The length thus depends on the length of your ruler. Area, maximal length and minimal width are well defined and could be used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.226.37.213 (talk) 00:12, January 17, 2010 (UTC)
:That's technically true in the theory of fractal geometry, in which the length of the outline of a snowflake may exceed a million kilometres.  It seems not very useful in geography.  It's safe to say that the coastline of Palmyra is no shorter than its mathematical convex hull, so "at least" would work, even very technically.2605:6000:ED08:B300:152D:4330:C5D2:2DFA (talk) 22:54, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Measure

message: It is unique in being the only current incorporated territory of the U.S.A.  Since it is incorporated, does this mean any child born there is a U.S. citizen by birth? Goustien (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct according to incorporated territory, which cites a DOI document. (see first sentence of the linked section, "Incorporated and unincorporated territories").  That said, be advised that anyone headed there to bear children will find no medical facilities nor encouragement at the prospect.  But Christmas Island is within a couple day's sail if you're lucky. –Newportm (talk • contribs) 05:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Political status

message: Would the Palmyra Atoll contain the southernmost point within the USA proper?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.129.63 (talk) 10:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Palmyra is located in the northern hemisphere at about 5 degrees north latitude.  Perhaps you're thinking of Rose Atoll.  Rose Atoll's latitude is 14 degrees 30 minutes south, or over 1,000 miles further south than Palmyra, so Rose Atoll would be the southernmost part of the USA. –Newportm (talk • contribs) 19:47, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Rose Atoll (like nearby American Samoa) was never "incorporated" into the United States of America, so it's not technically in the United States, so it's not technically the southernmost point "within the USA proper."  Rose Atoll only "appertains to" the USA as an unincorporated territory (small "t"), not an incorporated Territory (capital "T") with full rights under the American Constitution.  The distinction was made in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Downes v. Bidwell after the Spanish American War left the USA with several new territorial possessions, which were deemed by the court to be "unincorporated" rather than actual parts of the body or "corpus" of the country.  After the Republic of Hawaii including Palmyra was annexed by the USA it all became an incorporated Territory  -- PART of the USA  (by Act of Congress, April 30, 1900, ch. 339, Sections 4 and 5.).  In 1959, most of the federal Territory of Hawaii, deliberately excluding Palmyra, became an American state, leaving only the tiny, distant remnant of the federal Territory as the U. S. Territory of Palmyra Island, America's only remaining incorporated Territory now.  Although not in any American state, Palmyra is in the USA as much as the District of Columbia is.  Therefore, Palmyra Atoll is technically the southernmost place "in" the United States.    Also, the private island on the south side of the Palmyra lagoon is apparently the southernmost private land in the USA.2602:306:3769:8850:58DD:2B42:943A:B53D (talk) 08:50, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on examining maps: The southernmost point of the USA (excluding unincorporated territories) is currently (since 2014) the south shore of Holei Island in the incorporated Territory of Palmyra Island, at 5 degrees, 52 minutes, 15 seconds North latitude.  It is government owned except for property rights of the Fullard-Leo family (to buried treasure) and three native Hawaiian families.  Before 2014, Dadu Island, a tiny treeless islet southeast of Barren Island,  extended further south to 5 degrees 52'10"N so it was then the southernmost point of the USA, but it was washed away in 2014 (see historic aerials in Google Earth; it was named after a dog that lived on Palmyra).  The southernmost private land in the USA is Home Island extending south to 5 degrees 52'20"N.99.118.152.133 (talk) 11:47, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

text: The first map in the current Palmyra Atoll main article still shows Dadu Island at the lower right, so it's out-of-date.  Recent aerial pictures online show Dadu Island no longer exists.99.118.152.133 (talk) 00:40, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of countries by southernmost point|Southernmost Point]] in the United States of America

message: Territories of the United States states without attribution that "Palmyra was formerly (before 1950) a seaplane base used by Pan American Airlines and the U.S. Navy. It had a Pan American hotel that was used for overnight stops by travelers. It was along an air travel route that linked Hawaii with American Samoa, Australia, and other destinations in the south Pacific as non-stop flights were not possible.". If true, this seems at least as relevant to the history of the island as who sold what parcels of land to whom. Can anyone verify/disprove the claim? Cwelgo (talk) 20:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find support that the island of Palmyra was a seaplane base for Pan Am.  I have found that a sheltered lagoon of Kingman Reef was used as a stopover (don't know about the hotel).  See  http://www.qsl.net/krpdxg/krinfo.html.  Also, I think that the Territories of the United States section from which you quote is not accurate.  From http://www.doi.gov/oia/Islandpages/palmyrapage.htm, "the northernmost atoll in the Line Islands Archipelago halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa is Palmyra Atoll." The Wikipedia page is not supported by the government reference of the Dept of Interior. The Wikipedia page states that Palmyra Atoll "is an archipelago of about 50 small islands with about 1.56 sq mi (4 km2) of land area, lying about 1,000 miles (1,609 km) south of Oahu, Hawaii."  It is not Palmyra Atoll that is the archipelago; rather, according to the Dept of Interior, it is the Line Islands Archipelago which Palmyra is part of and what I believe Kingman Reef is part of.Television fan (talk) 23:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Though text about this was moved today from the Territories article to this one, I also see no reliable source about Palmyra serving as a Pan Am seaplane base, only Wake Island and Kingman Reef, as the prior entry mentions. Very similar, if not exact, wording is found at wallybarker.com, though with no indication of its original source. Kingman is about 30 nautical miles north of Palmyra, which may have something to do with any confusion, and Palmyra was used by the navy. I'll look some more, though unless a reliable source is found, the short paragraph about this will be removed. —ADavidB 23:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pan Am on Palmyra? 

message: Cyberbot II has detected that page contains external links that have either been globally or locally blacklisted.
Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed, or are highly innappropriate for Wikipedia.
This, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's spam, or not a good link.
If the link is a good link, you may wish to request whitelisting by going to the request page for whitelisting.
If you feel the link being caught by the blacklist is a false positive, or no longer needed on the blacklist, you may request the regex be removed or altered at the blacklist request page.
If the link is blacklisted globally and you feel the above applies you may request to whitelist it using the before mentioned request page, or request it's removal, or alteration, at the request page on meta.
When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags.
The whitelisting process can take its time so once a request has been filled out, you may set the invisible parameter on the tag to true.
Please be aware that the bot will replace removed tags, and will remove misplaced tags regularly.
Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:
*http://www.historyofnations.net/oceania/palmyra.html
*:Triggered by \bhistoryofnations\.net\b on the local blacklist
If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.
From your friendly hard working bot.—cyberbot II NotifyOnline 15:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The link in question was among the list of External links; it has been removed. —ADavidB 23:38, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page 

message: There are islands more remote than Palmyra Atoll, like Bouvet Island in the south Atlantic Ocean (the world's most remote island), but there is no privately-owned land there.  Palmyra is uninhabited but it evidently has several pieces of privately-owned land, including the facility of the private Nature Conservancy with an airstrip, and other islands at Palmyra privately owned by the heirs of Henry E. Cooper.  A remote south Atlantic island, Tristan da Cunha, is inhabited and has a village on it, possibly with freehold land.  Similarly Easter Island in the Pacific.   In both cases, although the islands are remote, neighbors living there are not remote from one another.  Other remotest Pacific Islands like Marcus, Johnston, Howland, Baker and Jarvis appear to be government-owned with no private land.  Question: Does Palmyra Atoll include the world's most remote private land? 99.118.152.133 (talk) 18:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The Pitcairn Island colony is not a candidate for having "the world's most remote private land".  The Pitcairn Islands LAND TENURE REFORM Ordinance (Revised, 2006) currently online at http://www.government.pn/Laws/Land%20Tenure%20Reform%20Ordinance.pdf expropriated all private (freehold) land parcels from the landowners (including the local island residents and non-resident descendants of Pitcairners who live at Norfolk Island, New Zealand and elsewhere).  Private freehold land was abolished and converted into government-owned land, and local island residents were granted temporary leaseholds.  Section 10 of the Ordinance states that the landowners receive no compensation, although the United Kingdom governing Pitcairn is a signatory of European Union treaties that require compensation for a government taking of land.  Pitcairn is as remote as Palmyra but there is no longer any private land at Pitcairn (unless the Ordinance is reversed or overruled by a court in London or Brussels before the scheduled 2019 "Brexit").  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.118.152.133 (talk) 22:17, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: If Palmyra Atoll does have the most remote private land in the world, that is a notable and significant fact, and it should be mentioned in the article.  Before concluding that, we should eliminate or discuss other candidate places, like Pitcairn Island, Antarctica (Is there any private land in the Argentine Sector?), etc.99.118.152.133 (talk) 11:24, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: As editors, we're not to do our own original research.  If a reliable source says Palmyra Atoll has the world's most remote privately-owned land, then we can include that information here.  If others dispute that info, we can include that as well.  If no reliable sources provide the info, then neither should we. —ADavidB 12:53, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This contradicts an interesting SYNTH principle of No OR.  "Routine calculations do not count as original research,... Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age are some examples of routine calculations."   "Most remote" is determined by comparing numeric geographic distances.  WP has dozens or hundreds of articles, refined over years by thousands of editors, that describe or list places by numeric values, geographic distances, heights, extrema, etc.  They are based on verifiable, non-primary, published sources for each of the individual items, like geograpic coordinates of cities, populations, mountain heights, etc., but the ordering, or stating the extrema (like "northernmost", "most populous", etc.) is determined for WP simply by comparing the numbers, heights, distances, etc.   These calculations, comparisons, list-orderings, and extrema ("most", "least", "tallest", etc.) are not considered OR.  The fact that Bouvetoya is the most remote island is determined by its geographic location (on the world, map, atlas, globe, etc.) and its calculated distances from other land.   In articles like List of northernmost items or Extreme points of Earth, Helsinki is listed as farther north than Moscow, but that is a consequence of documented geography  -- there might be no published scholarly work that states explicitly "Helsinki is farther north than Moscow", etc., for the pairs of cities of the world.  It simply follows from the underlying (well documented) geographic facts about the individual places.  The same applies to "the most remote X". (Also, from Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not, "SYNTH is not directly applicable to talk pages.")108.161.80.30 (talk) 09:56, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem. Cite the numbers used. Keep it basic and routine. —ADavidB 11:45, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

text: The same site shows that the Nature Conservancy bought it from the family in 2000, then sold about half of the atoll to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001; it isn't a full ownership. A Scientific American article includes Palmyra among "the most remote islands", and The Guardian describes it as "about as far from anywhere as you can get and still remain on Planet Earth". —ADavidB 23:33, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, & the private land includes the airport and pieces owned now by the Nature Conservancy and other pieces not mentioned on their list like islands owned by heirs of Henry Cooper, Henry Maui, Joseph Clarke or Bella Jones covered in the legal references.  Splitting hairs, even if the ATOLL contains the "most remote private land", it doesn't necessarily mean the Nature Conservancy owns the most remote private land ON the atoll.  Their land with the airport may be less remote there.  I'd refrain from saying the Nature Conservancy owns the world's most remote private land unless their documents or other published sources actually show that the most remote land on Palmyra Atoll belongs to them.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.118.152.133 (talk) 20:17, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

text: It would be helpful to know their definition of private. In any case, a map at this site suggests this "camp" is closer to Africa or South America than Palmyra is to any land. —ADavidB 20:44, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does Palmyra Atoll have the world's most remote privately-owned (freehold) land? 

message: Hello everyone, I wanted to let you all know that I have re-rated this article as C-class as opposed to Start-class. The article has several reliable sources, and is expansive enough to show a clear interpretation of the topic. While there are gaps in citations that still need to be filled, C-class articles are nowhere near perfect, and this article is no exception. However, leaving the article as Start-class would be severely undercutting the article's quality in my opinion. Utopes (talk / cont) 05:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rerated article 

message: In the common law, the "Rule Against Perpetuities" is a limit against creating perpetual trusts or restrictions on selling property.   It was the law in the Territory of Hawaii (including Palmyra) before statehood in 1959.  It's complicated, and it has been repealed in many states and modified in Hawaii (HRS 554G).  But state laws don't apply at Palmyra.  After 1959, the laws of the Territory were automatically repealed "in Hawaii" but not in Palmyra, so Palmyra territorial laws appear to be a legal time capsule from 1959, except the few superseded by federal law.  For example, "lewd conversation" is technically a crime there under Territory law from before 1959, but not under federal Title 18 U.S. Code.
Recently in the land title records, two companies that bought Palmyra land granted back equitable servitudes (specified property interests) to the sellers and their descendants.  A few of the grants added a restraint on alienation clause prohibiting sale of the property interest.  The Rule Against Perpetuities says you can't limit sales after "a life in being plus 21 years".  A descendant could be born more than 21 years after the deaths of all people "in being" named in the grant.  If one (maybe not even born yet) wants to sell his or her servitude property, will it be legal?  And if not, would that (as in the old Florida law) be a "fatal defect" in those servitudes with the clause, making them totally void (like the invalid will in the movie Body Heat)?
:Dirty talk illegal on Palmyra?  Sec 11673 of the Laws of Hawaii Territory, 1945, Rev. 1955: "Any man or woman who is guilty of lewd conversation, lascivious conduct, or libidinous solicitations, shall be punished by imprisonment of not more than one year or by a fine of not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or by both such imprisonment and fine." (The State of Hawaii couldn't change the federal Territory law after 1959.)  The criminal court cases on this "lewd conversation" are not about mere dirty jokes or sexy conversation between two talkers.  It was applied to improper seduction, or what is now called "grooming", where some older letch uses lewd talk trying to seduce a (presumably innocent young) victim.  It's unlikely that anybody gets federally prosecuted merely for telling a dirty joke or mentioning sex in conversation at Palmyra Atoll.2603:8080:2102:63D5:E4AB:7C44:A01:63A0 (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: "Law time capsule" from 1959: the [[Rule Against Perpetuities]] (and "lewd conversation") in the Territory of Palmyra Island

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Palmyra Atoll/Economy. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 17:17, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Palmyra Atoll/Economy" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Palmyra Atoll/People. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 17:26, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Palmyra Atoll/People" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Palmyra Atoll/Transportation. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Palmyra Atoll/Transportation" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: A 28 April 2020 edit altered the official name from "United States Territory of Palmyra Island" to "Palmyra Atoll".  This is incorrect, as is made clear in the article's section Official names, with legal citations.
  
The name "Palmyra Atoll" is used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to name a National Wildlife Refuge, and for a part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and Wikipedia uses it as the article name for the geographical atoll, but that is not the legal name of the territory.  The determining U.S. statutes and  Executive Order all call it "Palmyra Island", officially, never "Palmyra Atoll."  Furthermore, when there were several incorporated and unincorporated U.S. territories, the practice was to capitalize the "T" in the territory's name if, and only if, the territory was incorporated: hence United States Territory of Arizona, and Hawaii, but not Guam; Palmyra is still formally incorporated, as the remnant of the incorporated United States Territory of Hawaii.  See U.S. Insular Areas: Application of the U.S. Constitution, GAO/OGC-98-5 (November 7, 1997).  The correct, legal name of the territory now is "United States Territory of Palmyra Island", not any name with "Atoll" in it.  (Even though, physically, it is in fact an atoll with several islets and not a single island, as some court cases have noted in passing.)  It was called "Palmyra Island" when first annexed by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1862 and officially ever since, by the Kingdom, the Republic of Hawaii and the United States of America.
Before altering the official territory name, consult the official legal references, including Sec. 2 of the Hawaii Admission Act Pub.L. 86–3, 73 Stat. 4, enacted March 18, 1959; the Hawaii Omnibus Act, Pub. L. 86–624, enacted July 12, 1960, 74 Stat. 411; and Executive Order No. 10967, issued October 10, 1961.  Also, see the published territorial and federal court opinions about Palmyra.
If no legal authority is cited for the edit, it should be reverted. 2605:6000:101C:8964:E4C6:D48:BF22:39AB (talk) 21:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I've undone the edit in question. —ADavidB 10:44, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Incorrect edit of official U. S. territory name should be reverted

message: Hi. Can someone here tell me the shape of Palmyra? Is the dark blue in the center water? Are the white outer lines submerged? I would like to know the exact outline of what is above water. Google images could not help me figure this out. A map that only shows what is land would be wonderful if one exists. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:32, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: the shape of Palmyra is the one shown by the picture from space. As many atolls, there is a lagoon of salt water that communicates with Ocean by a channel (the channel is easy to see between the West Lagoon and the Sea). The lagoon of Pamyra has 3 parts, Western, Central (near the airstrip) and Eastern. A North-South causeway separates Central from Eastern Lagoon, exactly from Aviation Island to Engineer Island. You can see very well any detail with Google Earth.--Arorae (talk) 17:46, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Arorae, thank you for the very quick reply. I still can't see it. Turquoise could be water or could be land. White could be submerged or could be waves on a beach. Here's how far I got with my map. I stopped somewhere by the channel? -SusanLesch (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  you’re welcome. Turquoise or Bondi beach colours are always water or similar. Have you seen on Google Earth? There is nowhere on Earth an exact limit between Land and Water. It depends on rains, tides, winds. The deep blue is the part of the lagoon quite deep. The light blue, tending sometimes to green or white, it is also salt water, when it is not deep. Only the dark green is land (mainly vegetation and palms), but could be white (beach) or bare lands. It is not easy to make an exact delimitation, that separates land from sea. Especially on an atoll. Have you been on an atoll yet? It is not an island like the other we can see that emerges from the sea. It is a beautiful mixture of coral, sand and very few earth (the soil doesn’t exist properly), 1 or 2 metres above the Sea.--Arorae (talk) 18:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  the pink limit you draw on the map, is the reef limit, not the limit between land and water. The reef is not true land (most of the time) but could be land at low tide. It looks white or clear on the maps, less dark than the earth. But it could be dark (it depends on the type of coral). The coral under the Sun becomes white or clear, like white stone, but not always.--Arorae (talk) 18:51, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The map of Tarawa makes sense to me now that you have explained this a bit. Would Palmyra be similar in that there is a lagoon inside and a channel at (south) west? This map from the University of Hawaii is solid, more what I would expect to see in an island, except I don't understand bathymetry. Maybe Palmyra will just remain a mystery. Thank you very much for your help. 😃 -SusanLesch (talk) 19:15, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Palmyra is very similar to Tarawa, but with a smaller lagoon and a narrower channel. On the schematic map of Tarawa, sea is blue, islets of South Tarawa are red (Urban area) and islets of North Tarawa are yellow (Rural area), and reef is the clear grey part around the islets. It could not have been explained better.--Arorae (talk) 19:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Land mass 

message: my brother and I sold our inherited share of Home Island maybe15 years ago for about 11k. Cooper descendants on my father's side (Montgomery). I'm just fascinated now as I was several years ago with the island history. Would like to know more about Cooper's role in the island. I have more to read on the documented history but any knowledge would be greatly appreciated! DMONTGOMERY17 (talk) 01:29, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comment above, if your father's widow is still alive and could still own (and possibly transfer to you and your brother) her dower estate in Home Island.172.56.90.188 (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fascinated but sad my brother and I sold our shares.