J Boyle said, “To not admit an error for years compounds the error (and make one look bad).  Another example of the group’s myopia on AE and [her] fate.”

It would be a little less egregious if this was the only time it’s happened – but it isn’t. Gillespie has done the same thing over and over, for decades. He always shrugs it off when he’s proven wrong about something, saying “That’s science at work,” but that is NOT how science works. Science investigates and incorporates new facts into a theory and moves in a different direction when the data and facts indicate to do so. Gillespie does not – his default position on anything found on Nikumaroro is, Must be Earhart’s and, This solves the mystery! until exhaustive efforts prove otherwise. A few examples:

• The Wreck Photo: In 1989 Gillespie was shown a grainy black-and-white photo of a twin-engined aircraft crashed in a jungle setting and asked, Is this Earhart’s Electra? He investigated the photo for the next 20 years, while issuing numerous “research bulletins” and updates about how the wreck could, or could not, be Earhart’s. In 1998 Gillespie stated the photo could not be of a Japanese Tachikawa Ki-54, a twin-engined aircraft which resembles the Electra. In 2006, he said, “After many years of research and head-scratching, I’m convinced that the Wreck Photo shows a Tachikawa KI-54 ‘Hickory’ advanced trainer.” It took him another three years, until 2009, to come out with a “research bulletin” titled The Wreck Photo Resolved.
• The Knob: During its November 2001 trip to Nikumaroro, TIGHAR found a metallic object that archaeologist Dr. Tom King initially identified as a metal cap for some kind of container. By the time Gillespie (who is not an archaeologist) was through with his initial write-up, the cap had morphed into “a knob which originally turned a shaft which, in turn, performed some function on an instrument or device.” Months of citizen scientist speculation ensued on TIGHAR’s discussion forums. After a detailed examination with a (gratis) scanning electron microscope and months of effort by TIGHAR’s forensic photo analyst to decipher a series of letters and numbers embossed on the artifact, it was identified in July 2002 as – a cap. Probably for some type of lubricant. The only thing atypical of this positive identification was how quickly Gillespie moved to nail it down.

These are just a few examples. Gillespie has shown a consistent pattern through the decades of seeing what he wants to see, and hearing what he wants to hear, if it agrees with what he thinks happened. That’s not how science works.

The horse farm is owned by someone Gillespie called a “TIGHAR benefactor.” It was supposed to have been bought out by Gillespie or sold to TIGHAR by 2018 – but here it is 2024 and it hasn’t happened 

wk165’s comment about what the sonar photo might be echos Gillespie’s increasingly shrill but so far evidence free guesses.

It might be from any number of airplanes. The fact remains that the seas around Howland Island have never been heavily populated by aircraft. Gillespie needs to come up with specifics instead of randomly seeing what might stick on the wall. 

hypersonic said: “I’m sure the surviving relatives, of the crew, would have been very happy to provide DNA samples. For him/or a specialist working with him to carryout a DNA check against the human faeces and bones he claims to have found in the past. You can’t argue with real science!!”

That is just one of the many, many bits of its “evidence” that TIGHAR is no longer talking about. Which seems to fit the pattern of getting really, really excited about some random bit of detrius, stoking to flames of speculation so the donations to “help solve the mystery!” keep flooding in, and then … forgetting about it when it turns out the detrius is just that.

(There is rather a long list of things that either haven’t panned out (2-2-V-1, the ‘magic scrap” of aircraft aluminum being the most recent) or that are questionable enough to be meaningless (either the turtle/human finger bone or the bones found on Nikumaroro in 1940, take your pick).

Well that didn’t take long. Gillespie is in full-throated defense of his hypothesis: “Many of you will have seen the breathless media coverage of an airplane-shaped sonar image alleged to possibly be Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.

It isn’t.

Aside from the reams of evidence that Earhart and Noonan landed and died at Nikumaroro, the aircraft (if it is an aircraft at all) cannot be an Electra. The Lockheed Model 10 was built around an immensely strong center section that featured a massive “main beam” that ran through the cabin and all the way from engine to engine. For the wings of an Electra to fold rearward as shown in the sonar image, the entire center section would have to fail at the wing/fuselage junctions – and that’s just not possible.”

There’s more: “If the sonar image shows an airplane it’s most likely one of several 1950s-era swept-wing carrier-based types Fuel exhaustion and “cold cat shot” accidents were not uncommon. In such deep water, salvage would be out of the question.”

It IS true catapult accidents or running out of gas were not uncommon problems at the dawn of jet-powered naval aviation, but … Look at where this sonar target is. It’s beyond unlikely for a US aircraft carrier to be in those parts, at that time, and Gillespie says this without a shred of proof offered.

And for Gillespie (who is not a structural engineer) to make a blanket assertion that the Electra can or cannot fold up a certain way upon hitting the ocean falls into the “coulda-shoulda-woulda” category of speculation that he roundly dismisses when anyone engages in it on the TIGHAR forums.