June 2, 2012

"New information gives a clearer picture of what happened 75 years ago to Amelia Earhart..."

"... and navigator Fred Noonan, where they came down and how they likely survived – for a while, at least – as castaways on a remote island."

That story is ranking as the most popular story at CSM right not, but here's a Skeptoid episode from last January going through the evidence and concluding:
TIGHAR begins with the assumption that Amelia Earhart crashed, camped out, and died on Nikumaroro. They take everything they find — every anomaly in a photograph or in a story, every piece of bone or manmade artifact found on the island — and try to match it to their assumption, rather than trying to objectively assess its origin.

11 comments:

SteveR said...

Using the same techniques as the AGW folks use

Scott M said...

I read the article a few days back that called 50 or so of the radio messages in question "credible" and that got me looking that island called Nikumaroro itself, separate to the mystery of where she ended up. Coincedentally, the atoll is mentioned in a fiction manuscript I'm reading as well.

The locale is very, very interesting and has seen multiple attempts to colonize it, all of which failed due to the stark lack of fresh water. Desalination simply isn't cheap enough yet to warrent this little, bitty place getting a plant, but some day it will be.

Once the water problem is solved...you gotta worry about the aggressive nature of the largest crabs known on Earth. Have you seen them? They're right out of a nightmare.

edutcher said...

Interesting, if true.

The assumption always was they were captured by the Japanese and exceuted as spies (the Panay Incident was only 5 months in the future).

There was a US Marine officer who disappeared under similar circumstances (Earl can't remember the last name - maybe Fen or Skyler knows) in the same period.

CWJ said...

I don't see the problem. It seems to be the same method used to prove global warming. And we know THAT science is settled.

madAsHell said...

They march out the Amelia Earhart story every 5 or 6 years because she was an aviatrix.

ndspinelli said...

The flick about her also crashed w/ nobody watching.

xennady said...

I've actually read the book written by Ric Gillespie about this hypothesis and why TIGHAR believes Earhart ended up at Gardner Island, as the atoll was then known.

I find that hypothesis a lot more credible than blather from a "skeptic" who asserts that Gillespie isn't being scientific because "an evidence-based consensus exists which remains unshaken".

In other words the question of what happened Earhart is settled- just like global warming. Sure.

Of the top of my head, among the reasons that TIGHAR advances in support of their theory are that 1)Noonan actually made an error on an earlier leg of the flight that caused then to miss their intended destination by many miles 2) The discoverer of the human remains on Gardner actually thought they may have been that of Earhart- and reported this to his superiors. 3) There are radio transmissions that seem to have come from Earhart after her aircraft would have run out of fuel, implying she was able to land somewhere.

These are all addressed in the book, entitled Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Read the Amazon.com reviews for more info, if interested.

Petunia said...

Earl "Pete" Ellis. Somewhere I have a book about him.

I'm a huge aviation and Earhart fan. I'd love it if someone could find out what really happened to her. I think Ric Gillespie is milking Nikumaroro for all it's worth. It's possible she and Noonan ended up there, but the freckle cream jar is just the latest artifact to be claimed as evidence she might have been there...like the shoe heel and a piece of aluminum that TIGHAR claimed could have been from the Electra.

The Search For Amelia Earhart, by Fred Goerner, from the early 1960s, is an interesting book. The most intriguing part of it was where Goerner talked with Admiral Chester Nimitz about his theory that Earhart and Noonan were on a spy mission and had been taken prisoner by the Japanese. Nimitz apparently told him he was on the right track and encouraged him to keep looking. Prank or hint? :)

When I was on Saipan I visited the prison where some say Earhart and Noonan were held prisoner. Someone had written "I was here⁄! Amelia Earhart" and drawn a picture of an airplane.

Unfortunately it was a drawing of a 727...

Unknown said...

Ever read the little novel, I Was Amelia Earhart? Its poetry is beginning to sound pretty literal.

rhhardin said...

John Denver was the Amelia Earhart of country music; also if you mean, somebody added, a semi-competent professional in his field.

Joe said...

All these fantastical theories requires a long series of coincidences. They simply ignore the obvious: Earhart ditched in the ocean, the plane sank. They died. End of story.