Baldeagle / brucev
It's okay with not believing this claim. We understand its really not an easy feat to try and overturn a hundred years of information being taught and told, over and over and over again in school rooms and museums. You know what they say: "You can lead a horse to water..."

We know there will always be advocates in the Wright Brothers camp, and we'll never convince those people otherwise. As I've said before, the Wrights' legacy cannot be forgotten or tarnished. To me these cumulative efforts are merely trying to alter it. The photo seems to certainly have existed. By looking at the link on this site,
http://www.gustave-whitehead.com/history/detailed-photo-analysis/It is in my humble (and biased opinion) that there's substantial evidence that's been brought forth. It is believed that the photo possibly still exists in the Smithsonian's archives, though I don't know if this is in fact true. However, if the photo does exist in a folder somewhere, it sure seems like they'd be the last group to acknowledge it's existence, no? Apparently Gustave was somewhat secretive and did not want someone to capture a failure on film, henceforth the lack of photographic documentation possibly. Gustave did not finish flying after 1903. I believe the reason he wasn't known as well afterwards was because he became highly sought after for his light-weight engines. He also never had a design that was successful as his No.21 model.
Again, we know we're not going to be changing everybody's minds left and right automatically. Especially considering almost everyone alive right now has been taught that the Wright's flew first since they could walk. Whitehead has always been known as "one of the early ones" that didn't make it. And nothing more. We like our history to be clean-cut and easy. Not something that will force us to rewrite all the history books and muddle it up. The fact is is that John Brown has helped immensely in validating quite alot of Whitehead's story and bringing to light many new insights. He's dispelled quite a number of rumors that have held water over the years, now succumbing to more and more evidence. While we here in the Whitehead camp look at this as an overall victory, the journey doesn't stop here. We will continue to research and discover new facets about Whitehead's life and hopefully one day find proof that is so absurdly undeniable, that the highest authorities will have no choice but to acknowledge him. Now this isn't to undermine the other early aviation pioneers like Alberto Santos Dumont. We know there we're many early aviators and really they all aided in propelling forth an industry we all love and take part in today.