No, Courtney Love didn't find Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

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Storified by CBC News Community Tue, Mar 18 2014 09:02:54

Hole lead singer Courtney Love wrote yesterday that she thought she may have found the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in satellite images posted online, although the company behind the crowdsourced effort had already identified the image as a boat.

Love, the widow of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, posted her findings on Twitter and Facebook, marking the areas she thought significant with hand-written notes.

I'm no expert but up close this does look like a plane and an oil slick. http://t.co/AR005kNTYR prayers go out to the families #MH370Courtney Love Cobain

really? look closer? check it out @DR24 #MH370 and its like a mile away Pulau Perak, where they "last" tracked it http://t.co/tqavAe4zILCourtney Love Cobain

Love had been using Tomnod.com, the crowdsourcing website where U.S. firm DigitalGlobe had placed its satellite images had invited the public to scour them to look for the missing jetliner.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search crowdsourced by U.S. firmA U.S. company has put crowdsourcing to work in the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner, inviting internet users to comb through satellite images of over 3,100 square kilometres of ocean for any sign of wreckage, the company says. Colorado-based DigitalGlobe Inc.

Some Twitter users quickly followed up with posts wondering if it could possibly be true that Courtney Love Cobain had found the jetliner that has been eluding experts since it vanished March 8.

Just imagine if Courtney Love did actually find that plane.Cath Hurley

I've never wanted anything more than I want Courtney Love to have actually found Flight 370Abraham Riesman

Others, though, responded with simple mockery.

Courtney Love does not know where Flight 370 is. Courtney Love doesn't even know where she is.Mark Leggett

All observations should now be made in the style of Courtney Love http://t.co/g8gVCNeOmUDan News

Courtney Love has no business making speculative, crackpot claims about the missing Malaysian jet. That's the job of CNN!Frank Conniff

As it turns out, the portion of the map that Love posted has been identified by other Tomnod users, and was the topic of a post on its Facebook page just hours before.

Sometimes our eyes see what we want them to see: Just got note from our analysis team who has been digging in to map #128148. Although it is still an interesting clue, it is looking much more like the other boats operating in the region. Keep up the good work.

Tomnod posted an enhanced version of the image showing that it is likely a boat.

Tomnod

It's done the same thing with other locations that have been flagged by the crowd, like this one revealing, again, a boat.

Why analysts in the loop are critical: This image shows the number 1 crowdsourced location detected to date. On the right is the same image after rotation, saturation, and other expert analyst tweaks... looks much more boat-like, right?! ...Every crowd result is filtered by our CrowdRank algorithm to locate the highest likelihood sites. These sites are then examined by DigitalGlobe image analysts who determine veracity and make sure that we never miss a single clue.See more

Love isn't alone in having tweeted the results of her Tomnod searching. Cosmetics entrepreneur Loren Ridinger was among others who have searched the satellite images looking for oil slicks, life rafts and plane wreckage, and posted their screen shots on Twitter.

Look at these images I found at tomnod help find #MH370 http://t.co/9Ff4ooIKDOLoren Ridinger

Tomnod user Mike Seberger tagged an image,showing the outline of a plane underwater. #MalaysiaAirlines #MH370 http://t.co/T5TeOciwekM Tayyab

#MH370 Tomnod map 66514 looks interesting http://t.co/sUylXaVDVQTomasz Miklas

@tomnod map654342....MH370? http://t.co/8t9LT4jPJiJeff Lin

For its part, Tomnod has been replying to some of the tweets with their analysis of the images that people find, such as the one above.

@Flutamide initial analysis shows that this is a plane in mid flight and not mh370Tomnod

Tomnod's Twitter account also identified this image as a search aircraft in flight.

Was searching on tomnod this morning, site was playing up but spotted this, looks to small for a 777 but? http://t.co/ck4R2iWq8fHookie62

The search for Flight 370, now involving 26 countries, yet to find any trace of the Boeing 777 or its 239 passengers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: China finds no terror link to its nationals on jetChecks into the background of all the Chinese nationals on board the missing Malaysian jetliner have uncovered no links to terrorism, the Chinese ambassador in Kuala Lumpur said Tuesday. The remarks will dampen speculation that Uighur separatists in far western Xinjiang province might have been involved with the disappearance of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew early on March 8.

What do you think of the crowdsourcing effort to find the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner? Weigh in below.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/03/no-courtney-love-didnt-find-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370.html