PinecastleAAF wrote:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration/Shes-Still-Out-There-20120701.html?page=all
“Amelia’s fame is like a faucet I can turn on and off with a press release”
The BEST article on TIGGER I have ever read, the quote above is just one of many that resonate with many of the comments made in this thread and others on this forum and elsewhere!
Quote:
TIGHAR’s mix of tantalizing evidence and fundraising hype has been on display since the group’s first Nikumaroro expedition in 1989, when researchers found a metal bookcase that Gillespie believed came from Earhart’s plane. TIGHAR spent more than a year pushing the idea that the object was, according to Gillespie, “the grail,” even soliciting FBI analysis of the box’s metal and paint. An FBI investigator said the agency had found nothing to “disqualify this artifact as having come from the Earhart aircraft,” which isn’t quite the same thing as confirmation. But to Gillespie it sounded like proof. As he told one reporter: “We’ve got the first artifact ever alleged to be from Earhart’s aircraft that has passed muster—passed expert examination.”
Two years later, detailed analysis by TIGHAR showed that the box likely came from a World War II–era bomber. By then, however, Gillespie had refocused public attention on finds from TIGHAR’s 1991 expedition: a piece of aluminum aircraft skin and fragments from a 1930s size 9 shoe. “We will present proof that the Earhart mystery has been solved,” Gillespie told the Houston Post in advance of a press conference in Washington, D.C. Soon after, engineers tore holes in Gillespie’s theory that the aluminum matched Earhart’s plane, and the shoe turned out to be about three sizes too large to be Amelia’s.
Asked about these old instances of crying wolf, Gillespie claims there’s still a preponderance of evidence that points to Nikumaroro as Earhart’s final destination, saying that “every great scientific thing involves lots of trial and error.”
Quote:
Whereas other Amelia searchers are secretive about their expeditions, Gillespie announces his months in advance, in order to attract money and volunteers. Gillespie and his wife, Pat Thrasher, are the only paid employees
Quote:
So which is it? Is Gillespie a dogged researcher on the verge of unlocking one of the world’s great mysteries, or a skilled pitchman who has lured the State Department into his personal crusade? The 1937 landing-gear photo could prove to be a game changer, but it also seems to fit TIGHAR’s pattern of turning up the volume on evidence that may or may not be significant.
Quote:
Last year, Gillespie had a chance meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific Islands Kurt Campbell, an Earhart buff; they discussed the image, and Campbell offered to have government photo analysts study it. In a briefing on March 19, the day before the triumphant State Department event, another senior official summarized that analysis: “This is consistent with what looks to be a wheel of an Electra 10E at the time that Amelia Earhart flew.” But, the official noted, “this is all highly speculative.”
That hasn’t stopped Gillespie from sounding the alarm, which, he readily admits, is a key part of the strategy for a non-profit run out of his garage in Wilmington, Delaware. “Amelia’s fame is like a faucet I can turn on and off with a press release,” he says.
Quote:
His willingness to crank that faucet rubs some people the wrong way. “I’m a little jaded that Ric has done these things over and over again,” says David Jourdan, the president of Maine-based Nauticos, a TIGHAR competitor that is planning a 2013 expedition elsewhere in the South Pacific to look for Earhart. “He gets everyone spun up about something new—the bones, the photo, whatever. They start with a premise that Amelia made it to this island, and then they seek data that supports it.”
Quote:
Tom D. Crouch, a senior curator at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, has long been skeptical of TIGHAR’s Nikumaroro theory but can’t help admiring the group’s approach. “It’s worked over a long period of time,” says Crouch. “They keep going back to the island, and they’re always able to do something new to keep interest alive. Sometimes they make claims that are over the edge, but it keeps the money coming in.”
Quote:
The only thing missing with TIGHAR, of course, is the discovery—something Gillespie hopes to remedy this month when he sails alongside sonar technicians, TIGHAR volunteers, camera crews, and one generous donor who gave the group $1 million. Also on board will be a 1,000-pound autonomous underwater vehicle that will scan the island’s reef slope. If he finds Earhart’s plane, Gillespie doesn’t plan to retrieve it immediately. “Our objective is to come back with imagery and a location,” he says. Eventually, TIGHAR hopes to raise the aircraft from the ocean floor and donate it to the Smithsonian. Crouch, for his part, isn’t holding his breath. “I think it could remain a mystery for a lot longer,” he says
I think that article summarises it for me, an excellent fund raiser who is paid for his efforts, and from his raised funds, and has a hypothesis and is trying to find evidence to back fit to support it, and calls wolf prematurely and constantly cashes in on the Earhart name and fame to raise funds to keep searching, and keep him being paid.
It reminds me of the TV Evangelist industry in the US that we see invoking the name of "God and Jesus" and then displaying the PO Box to send your cheques to, to allow them to enjoy their rich lives, and "keep doing their good work".
I also suspect this will remain a mystery for a lot longer and do not expect to see any Lockheed parts recovered from the sea around Nikumaroro, coral encrusted or not.
regards
Mark Pilkington
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