Amelia Earhart, TIGHAR, Hillary Clinton, Pres Obama…..

Keep up the great work please 🙂

Response to Anson:

Fortunately I have a good memory and I can recall where I was on the particular ridgeline when we saw the patch of bare earth where it was obvious that the bulldozer had been working. It is only since we now have heard that the Baining fella buried it that that patch of bare earth has a huge significance. The bare patch had a slope off the ridgeline to the north and the bulldozer track we were on turned to the left after that bare patch and we descended down into a creek bed. I will be able to retrace our steps with this knowledge and locate the bulldozer track again. If we had the money then I would be able to take a GPR Unit with us. We do not have that luxury and I am now dependent on funding. Being retired does not give you the opportunity to recoup any money spent by topping up with wages so the matter rests until I get some funding. That’s the sad fact.

The bare patch is definitely in the right area from the information from the Veterans because the ridgeline at that point is narrow and Lt. Backhouse climbed to the ridgeline and looked out to the south and saw hills in the distance which is exactly what you do see. The ridgeline ends there and a descent to the valley starts right after the bare patch location which is another clue and matches with what the Vets said, “After we saw it, we descended into the Valley towards the river.”

Yes, there will be trees on the site now, they will be a maximum of 20 years old. We should be able to get definite readings from Metal Detectors and if it is there the pings will give us a localised area. We do get soundings all over these hills but sometimes they are weak but with a definite object underfoot they should be extremely positive.

Media knocking on the door…. Just of late, I have written to the Wichita Eagle newspaper and I have mailed a Radio Station in Salina Kansas, I have also emailed a Country Music singer and writer who recently declared that she has been interested in Earhart since being a little girl. None have responded as yet. I have lost count of the contacts I have sent the website to over the 20 years I have been following up on this, by putting boots on the ground. I sometimes feel I am wasting my time and money but the evidence is the driver, it is the only evidence that anybody has and it is imperative that this is continued. The whole thing is like a jigsaw and pieces have been fitting for years.

I was once down into trees in a helicopter in Sabah in 1968 just after “Confrontation” had finished. I could have been deceased then and hidden by the jungle and just after that experience I had the thought of: “Who would have come looking for me ?”

RPM, FF, TGT…
David Billings

Part 9 is very interesting. Will modern ground radar search devices be needed or can you locate the wreckage fairly easily at the depth you expect its buried? Will any new tree or plant growth have complicated things a lot?
The whole new website is fascinating. I’m surprised the media aren’t knocking on your door.

Response to Meddle:

The point man, Corporal Don Angwin, saw a 3 to 4 inch round tube looking at him and thought initially that it was a gun barrel. This is explained in Part 3 “Wreckage is found” and in Part 6 “Analysis” on the website.

RPM…

I’m sure I read of the ‘discovery’ on East New Britain Island before. Didn’t the infantry men initially think they had come across a sniper position because they mistook a propeller blade for a gun barrel?

Earhart Search PNG

For all those interested in the ongoing project in Papua New Guinea to re-locate an all-metal unpainted, twin-engine aircraft without military insignia seen by an Australian Army Patrol in April 1945, the latest item in the project is Part 9 of the story which has now been posted on:

http://earhartsearchpng.wordpress.com

We will shortly be moving to a new domain (a www.) to increase readership and I will notify when this has been done.

For Anson:

No… strangely, there has been no mention of our latest effort at publicity. Now this is not a normal occurrence for one so sharp at the flintlock practice that the “Executive Director” of that organisation so often normally does carry out. I recall I did receive a Fax from him back in 1996 or 1997 where he enquired under the auspices of his high office as to the origin of our evidence, that he had heard by a break in a confidence; but when I replied in a “cannot confirm or deny” mode, I heard no more from that worthy enterprise. Years later after ‘USA Today’ ran the story in 2004, his office had to admit to the faithful Forum brethren there, that he had known about it but had not informed them. Since then there were a few remarks, some of them quite sneering in fact, from members there…. but nothing for the last few years I think.

Twin Otter 23:

Keep that Argosy C.Mk.1 cockpit in good nick at the NAM….. I may come back and fire it up again one day… I enjoyed the last time about fifteen years ago… I might have difficulty remembering some of the checks but I will never ever forget to remove the FPS Lever and check for 5 Lights after landing……

Regards,

RPM…

Hot news from NAM – new Amelia Earhart display with some ‘fresh’ insight being provided … 😉

….could you please elaborate ZRX61 ? .. to whom are we ascribing the “religion” to…TIGHAR ?, or the seemingly more methodical RPM, FF, TGT…

This is how religions get started….

Well Ex RAF Halton man Mr Billings , your website is very, very interesting.I hope you get a lot of ‘reads’. The Wasp fuel consumption figures are obviously key and your spreadsheet is a great way to demonstrate what might have happened.
Have your ‘friends’ at TIGHAR responded yet!!!!!!?

Anyway, hat’s off, very well done!

Thanks for the compliment. It took a lot of work. I had to go backto “my youf” as an Apprentice at RAF Halton in the late 50’s, dig out my old textbooks and classroom books and together with the ones from my F/E training in the mid 60’s…… do it all again….

You are correct, the site is still under construction with Parts 7 and 8 due to appear shortly. I also have video of the Vets at interview which I will put up on YouTube and link them in to the site.

Thanks again….

RPM
http://earhartsearchpng.wordpress.com

http://earhartsearchpng.wordpress.com

That is an excellent presentation of the ‘ENB hypothesis’, if I may use that term. Very well written and illustrated and everything all in one place; till now I’d only seen various aspects of it discussed piecemeal. One thing I don’t see is a link to something like PayPal, which would give people interested in the project a way to support it. But it looks like the site is still under construction, so maybe that will come.

Anyway, hat’s off, very well done!

The Cult of Tighar and a Group Objective

J Boyle is correct and the North Korean analogy fits, people disappear without trace after posting views contrary to the Tighar Doctrine. Mark P (in the post above) refers to the banning of dissidents which follows the groove of the DPRNK….. The recent denial of service to non-members posting (pay to post) has robbed TIGHAR of the independent and intellectual thought processes which did produce ideas which TIGHAR ran with….

I say that as a reader of TIGHAR since 1994.

So too, and because of this, the TIGHAR membership so frequently claimed to be worldwide is obviously not so large as “the Management of Two” would like. A claim recently made that TIGHAR was the “biggest” aviation forum site were absolutely astounding compared to this one which TiGHAR obviously does not know exists….. TIGHAR only racks up with on average, 30 people visiting daily on “that” site. Even that number of 30 odd, mysteriously is double what it used to be a few weeks ago. Members seem to come and go at TIGHAR like ships in the night.

The Group Objective remains as NIKU…. NIKU 9 being scheduled for the 80th anniversary year. “The Management” painted itself into a corner with the Nikumaroro Hypothesis and there is nowhere to go now except down into the deep briny offshore with manned submersibles for which TiGHAR looks to be in need of US$3-5 Million. That (if possible to be raised) will mean that if it is raised and spent, some $12 million will have gone down the lagoon ….

In re-reading this entire thread, I have remembered a question J Boyle asked and that was: “Where did the Sextant Box possibly come from ?”. At the time I myself answered that it could have come from an Officer on the S.S. Norwich City grabbing this piece of equipment while dashing for a lifeboat. There is a possible other source and that is from a Surveyor on the USN Vessel “Bushnell” which visited Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) when the survey was done prior to the LORAN station being set up…. not to forget about the Bevington and New Zealand surveys either…. Recently in one of my trips to New Britain, I borrowed a bicycle (the only one in the village) and went to the coast to be in line of sight to the new phone tower across the bay. I hid the bike in the coastal bush off the track and tried the phone on the beach. When I went back for the bike, I could not find it. It took a complete walk through of a half hour before I found it. If a Bushnell Surveyor left the box and moved to a more advantageous position for a sextant sighting the same thing might well have happened.

RPM
http://earhartsearchpng.wordpress.com

The reform chosen was not to treat dissenters with respect, rather it was to greatly reduce the possibility that any dissenting opinions would ever even appear over there.

Exactly.
Lately the group’s policies certainly seem more like a cult ( or North Korea 🙂 ) than a serious research group objectively looking at an issue.
Dissenting opinions are silenced.

It really doesnt matter if Tighar doesnt allow open debate, AMF more than makes up for it, and apparantly many Tigger fence sitters visit to read the alternative view.

What’s significant is that Tighar has thrown in the towel on debating with skeptics on its own forum where it has a distinct home court advantage, so to speak. So far under the new policy the fellow whom one wag has aptly called ‘The Leader’ has been running a scavenger hunt for trivial information about Earhart’s Electra for a self-published book that Tighar grandly claims it is producing “as a service to historians and researchers”. I think the Leader has been made to realize that the hostility shown to dissenting opinions over there looked very, very, bad. The reform chosen was not to treat dissenters with respect, rather it was to greatly reduce the possibility that any dissenting opinions would ever even appear over there.

Not exactly a new policy but just a change of the way dissenting opinions are treated. There are just so many holes that can be plugged before something completely disintegrates and I’m afraid the Nikumaroro hypothesis passed beyond that stage years ago.

The difference now is that DocBob and other dissidents debate and dissect the Tighar claims over on “Aviation Mysteries Forum” out of Ric and Martys reach for both moderation, censorship or outright banning.

It really doesnt matter if Tighar doesnt allow open debate, AMF more than makes up for it, and apparantly many Tigger fence sitters visit to read the alternative view.

http://aviationmystery.com//index.php

Regards

Mark Pilkington

Not exactly a new policy but just a change of the way dissenting opinions are treated. There are just so many holes that can be plugged before something completely disintegrates and I’m afraid the Nikumaroro hypothesis passed beyond that stage years ago.

The Earhart threads here have been rather quiet recently. I thought I’d make my first post to provide an update on a development over at Tighar that some here might find of interest. The powers that be over at Tighar have decided that only dues-paying Tighar members be allowed to post on their forum, and that policy has now been in effect since March 1.

For the most part it was the non-dues paying Tighar Forum members who were willing to make posts disagreeing with some aspect or other of the Nikumaroro Hypothesis, so the result of the new policy has been, predictably, a somnolent forum. Although to an objective outside observer the new policy looks to be a failure, I think from the perspective of Tighar management, the new policy is a success. Every effort over the last few years by Tighar to promote the Nikumaroro Hypothesis on the forum has met with sharp, reasoned, criticism on the forum, mostly from non-dues paying members. All of that will largely be a thing of the past now that Tighar management is preaching only to the converted. Yes, a few apostates among the dues paying flock remain and will have to be banished, and probably every now and then a currently-loyal Tighar forum member will experience that moment of clarity when the scales fall from his or her eyes and then ugliness will ensue until that person is banished. But for the most part the forum will now be a place where no bad idea about the favored hypothesis will go unadmired. From Management’s perspective that makes the forum a better tool for promoting Tighar and the Nikumaroro Hypothesis.

Excelsior, Tighar, Excelsior!

Get ready for lots of learned debate as to whether the baked bean tins and coke bottles they find were on board the Electra…

I’m sure they could make a case for finding Diet Coke bottles…:)

I dont mind that Ric and Pat have made a business out of searching for Amelia Earhart, I do mind that they seem to cry wolf over successive shoddy “smoking guns” of “evidence” and then ignore significant holes in their claims, delete peer reviews or challenges to that evidence on their forum, and still continue to raise funds on discredited claims?

That’s my issue with them…they seem to try awfully hard to make the pieces of the puzzle fit. Anything found MUST have comer from AE. Like the infamous freckle cream jar (despite the fact there is no proof that the freckle cream company used a jar like that or the obvious issue whether AE used the stuff and carried it with her).
Like shoddy journalists (and historians and scientists) they seem to start with the desired result and try to make case going backwards…instead of collecting facts, then making a determination.

It’s sad that many who would otherwise decry “junk science” and mentalists, psychics and other conmen seem to be more than willing to fund the group.
If their methods are being supported by a respected university (i.e. not the Long Island School of Digging up Old Stuff and Hair Design) archaeological department…they I’ll gladly change my opinion.

I see the wild geese of Nikumaroro island are in for another chasing soon: The next expedition arrives there in June, assuming Tighar’s ever-generous followers stump up the $60k they’re currently short of. Get ready for lots of learned debate as to whether the baked bean tins and coke bottles they find were on board the Electra…