Non-mistaken identity

I understand that the teams don't want to overly raise the hopes of the bereaved families of those on the doomed Malaysian flight but to announce that they have detected radio signals from the Indian Ocean bed but don't want to confirm it as such, seems a little surreal.  It's not unlike the couple who found a time capsule of sorts stuffed with gold coins dating back more than a hundred years ago but not confirming it as theirs because Red from The Shawshank Redemption may have misremembered Andy's instructions to him, so it belongs to Red.
What else is that emitted pulse going to be?  An aged Cold War dolphin that escaped?  Aliens in the manner of the schlocky horror Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle Virus?  Another black box from a flight we didn't even know had gone missing?  I guess the toll of embarrassment in the saga of the missing Boeing 777 is that the search teams are keeping the powder in the driest possible conditions.