Beau said, “What other projects have TIGHAR been involved in and have any of them come to fruition?”

The two part answer is “Lots” and “Nope!”

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has never recovered a single complete airframe since its founding in 1985.

It has never recovered a single verified piece of a historic aircraft.

It has spent more than $9.3 million ($2.6 million in salaries alone) since 2000 and has little to show for it. Further discussion is here: https://mffowler.net/tighar_analysis.htm

Nice summary, Mark, and spot on as usual.

My impression is that Gillespie is finally starting to realize that his Earhart “faucet of fame” has been well and truly twisted shut. Outside of plugging his pending Earhart book, he has been pretty quiet (for him) about all things Earhart. In January 2022 he stated bluntly, “TIGHAR has no plans to return to Niku.”

Which speaks volumes, since that’s tossing away the 30-plus years and the more than $5 million he’s spent saying he’s solved the mystery.

J Boyle, I’ll take Door No. 3, “another way to keep in the spotlight and make a few bucks?”

I feel that this quote directly from Gillespie might explain a lot: “They are a classic illustration of what happens when a closed circle of true believers makes the facts subservient to the forgone conclusion.  Conjecture that fits the conclusion becomes fact and when facts are shown to be false they are readily explained with new layers of conjecture.  The inevitable result is an increasingly convoluted version of reality that can only survive outside the closed circle if the audience is unable or unwilling to question the foregone conclusion.”

He’s not talking about TIGHAR, although it may sound eerily apt. He was trashing the members-only Amelia Earhart Society … way back in 2004. The quote begins, “There are plenty of valuable lessons to be learned from the AES.” 

J Boyle said, “instead it became essentially a one topic group with pretty much one theory.”

Very true, and it’s a theory that Gillespie is apparently willing to defend to the death, because it has, among other things, gotten him the most media attention and the biggest fundraising hauls (at least $2.7 million in salary alone) over the years – We solved the Earhart mystery!!!!! – except, well … no.

As J Boyle succinctly points out above, none of TIGHAR’s “preponderance of evidence” has ever been shown to be directly tied to Earhart. None of it has ever been independently analyzed by a disinterested third party. None of it has been accepted by a competent or qualified outside agency as credible.

As is made painfully clear by the new timeline analysis of The Magic Scrap (link above), TIGHAR repeatedly failed to follow the scientific method when new facts indicated a new line of inquiry should be pursued. That’s not the way “science” is supposed to work, and you have to wonder why TIGHAR repeatedly failed to seriously look at anything that disagreed with their Earhart contentions. Saying, “Well, that’s science at work!” when some bit of their evidence is decisively proven to be not-Earhart’s isn’t letting the scientific method work – it’s more like grudgingly admitting you were totally and completely wrong after these little things the rest of us call “facts” make no other conclusion possible.

J Boyle said, “Why the sudden turn around?”

That is a very good and timely question. Why, indeed? Why is Gillespie suddenly admitting an aluminum scrap he steadfastly maintained for decades came from Earhart’s aircraft, probably didn’t? And discarding some of his precious post-crash radio calls as probable hoaxs? Maybe it has to do with the fact that his latest Earhart book is finally coming out later this year.

Or maybe it’s due to things like this: http://gardnerghost.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-piece-of-amelia-earharts-aircraft.html

J Boyle said, “Overall, if he has finally recanted something he stood by for many years, it makes you question his scientific methodology.”

I think you will find that Gillespie usually waits until someone like his photo consultant Jeff Glickman issues a report. If it doesn’t say what Gillespie wants, he shrugs and says, “Scientific method at work!”

Which isn’t really the case. The scientific method dictates that you pursue new avenues of thought or research when new facts or information dictate that you do so. In the case of the Magic Scrap, Artifact 2-2-V-1, Gillespie failed to do so for more more than 30 years.

But what do you honestly expect for a mere $10 million-plus in expenses?