Please do not remove this as it is sourced documentation It is here for those who want to know more about the TIGHAR organization you so whole heartly promote It is by author Mike Campbell The TIGHAR Nikumaroro Fiasco Two years of speculation and hype came to a numbing climax on March 16 1992 at the National Press Club in Washington D C At a crowded news conference receiving national TV coverage Richard Gillespie executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery TIGHAR unabashedly announced that the Amelia Earhart mystery is solved Since early 1990 following the group s first excursion to Nikumaroro a 3 5 mile long coral atoll in the Phoenix Islands about 2 100 miles southwest of Hawaii and three hundred miles south of Howland Island the national media had touted TIGHAR s theory that Nikumaroro could be the final resting place of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan The evidence Gillespie presented included a battered piece of aluminum a weathered size 9 shoe sole labeled Cat s Paw Rubber Co USA a small brass eyelet and another unlabeled heel the group found on Nikumaroro during TIGHAR s highly publicized return there in October 1991 These items elaborately displayed and labeled in a glass case all came from Earhart or her Electra according to Gillespie There may be conflicting opinions but there is no conflicting evidence Gillespie said I submit that the case is solved Gillespie then bit his lip and looked down at the floor a curious yet revealing display of body language for someone claiming to have solved one of the 20th century s greatest mysteries Gillespie and Patricia R Thrasher TIGHAR s husband and wife team theorize that through a navigational error Earhart and Noonan overflew Howland Island and landed on a reef on Nikumaroro during low tide There they died of dehydration a short time later The plane they said was washed over the reef when the tide came in and now lies under 2 000 feet of ocean The April 1992 Life magazine featured a six page spread penned by Gillespie who cites Navy pilot John Lambrecht s July 9 1937 report Signs of recent human habitation were clearly visible on Nikumaroro but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants Gillespie called this report hugely significant and tragically inadequate What had not been done in 1937 had to be done now We would have to search Nikumaroro Gillespie credited two retired military aviators Tom Gannon and Tom Willi of Fort Walton Beach Florida for the theory s origin Using celestial tables Gannon pointed out that on the morning of July 2 1937 the rising sun would have provided the precise line of position Earhart said she was running Gillespie wrote in Life By flying southeast along that line Noonan could be sure that even if he missed Howland he would reach an island in the Phoenix group in about two hours Clearly it was the safest sanest course to follow I traced the line on the chart and read the name of the island Nikumaroro This supposition was convincing to some but Devine wasn t impressed There is considerable information in Gillespie s rendition that can be faulted Devine writes One example is his attempt to foster a line between Howland Island and Nikumaroro He presents Earhart s last message as We are on line 157 337 We are running on line Earhart never reached Howland Island Earhart never saw Howland Island therefore Howland Island is not a reference point for a landing on Nikumaroro Earhart s authentic last message received by Coast Guard personnel on board the Itasca and recorded by Commander Thompson related no reference point We are on line of position 157 337 We are running north and south Earhart was not flying east toward Howland Island or Hawaii She was on a course a compass course or line of position 157 337 which terminates on the island of Saipan 1 With Our Own Eyes 163 164 Earhart was not adept at navigation and may have stated her reading from a pocket compass she carried on her person She was probably and almost certainly stressed by ensuing events especially if Noonan had been rendered unconscious during the almost disastrous takeoff of the overladen plane If Noonan had not been incapacitated I assure you that he one of the best air and sea navigators of that period would have