Can boomerangs bounce?

"Privacy in the age of computers and a Nature reader questions eyewitness accounts of boomerangs in our weekly dip into the archive."

"This article features text from Nature's archive. By its historical nature, the archive includes some images, articles and language that by twenty-first-century standards are offensive and harmful. Find out more."

Advances in computing technologies enable more extensive collection, storage, and analysis of personal information, threatening individual privacy. Without robust safeguards, data aggregation can reveal sensitive personal details and enable surveillance, profiling, and misuse. Legal frameworks, technical protections, transparency, and accountability are necessary to limit unauthorized access, preserve anonymity, and uphold civil liberties. Eyewitness reports of boomerang sightings require critical evaluation because perception errors, memory distortion, and misidentification can produce unreliable testimony. Independent corroboration through physical evidence, multiple observers, or controlled replication strengthens credibility. Historical materials may contain language or images offensive by modern standards and warrant contextual caution.

Read at Nature