By Carol Dow
With all due respects to the Discovery Channel and reporter Rossella Lorenzi, nothing new in the Gardner Island searches has produced any credible evidence of the Earhart loss. If there had been any material findings, it would have been on exhibition and touring the United States as the last remains of Amelia Earhart and her airplane. That has never happened.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) and its director, Richard Gillepsie, believes the Earhart airplane crashed at Gardner Island (Nikumaroro), made a forced landing on the island’s flat coral reef and was ripped apart by Nikumaroro’s strong waves. Thereafter, it was swept out into deep water leaving no visible trace.
The reef at Gardner Island is known to be wet and extremely slippery which leaves grave doubts that anything was rescued from inside the airplane or that the occupants of such a crash even survived or made it to shore without being swept over the side of the reef and into deep water. None of the deep sea explorers such as Dr. Bob Ballard (who discovered the Titanic wreckage) or the search group at Nauticos have expressed any interest in exploring the deep waters off Gardner Island.
The theory, in fact, is so nebulous it has not attracted any commentary except for an occasional reporter and a collection of TIGHAR die-hards who insist on chasing what amounts to very dubious evidence. The artifacts the TIGHAR group has collected gives reasons for grave doubts as to their authenticity.
Note: For much more regarding The Skull and the Skeleton, Amelia Earhart’s Shoes, The Sextant Box, The Dado, Scrap Aluminum, and Plexiglas, The Trek to Gardner Island, and Where’s the Proof?, please log on to www.earhartevidenceprovesfalse.com.