Have you seen us?
D | Tuesday, July 12, 2005

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Ok, so let me just start this post by saying that I realize this is a serious situation and I hope this would never happen to anyone. Let's take the rest of this post with a grain of salt...

I received one of those "Have you seen us?" lost children mailings today (click to enlarge graphic).



Typically I don't even read these things, but today I glanced at this one while walking from my mailbox back to my door. The pictures of the lost children were two girls who looked about 10 years old. I read the info and surely thought it was a typo. Age: 41. Weight: 85 lbs (at age 11). What?



Further inspection showed that they were both declared missing in 1975! Naturally, I wondered as to what was going on. I've always heard that if a missing child is not found in the first 24 hours, the chances of finding them go down exponentially. So I guess my ultimate question is what good might come from distributing an advertisement for lost children who would now be over 40 years old? Is the honest purpose of this ad for the girls illustrated to recognize their pictures, realize they were kidnapped, and find their old families? If that is the case, then OK, I'm on board - but I don't really know if that is what is going on here. The card said that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helps find 1 in 6 missing children and that is great, but what are we trying to accomplish here?

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a valuable service if it helps find even one lost child, but it has been 30 years for these two girls. They didn't even do the CSI computer picture morphing of their photos to adjust for age. If we are truly hoping to "find" these two girls, shouldn't we give the public the best chance of finding them by providing a possible morphed picture? I'm just so confused...

UPDATE:
Just incase you were interested, a little research found the aged pictures of these two girls. I guess they weren't included on the mailing for space requirements, but I still am not sure...? For further information about lost children, please view the NCMEC's website here.

D | 7/12/2005 07:04:00 PM |   Post your comment

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Comments:

I completely agree with you on this one, D. I found it really strange, and the first thing that I thought of was, "Are there no other children missing (that is, that have gone missing more recently) that they have to dig into the archives?"
Alex | July 13, 2005 5:43 AM | permalink
 

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I thought that too. The whole thing was puzzling...
D | July 13, 2005 12:05 PM | permalink
 

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