Fred Goerner’s book The Search for Amelia Earhart, alleging that Earhart and Noonan had been abducted by the Japanese, was published by Doubleday in 1966. Four years later, John Hathaway wrote to the publisher asking for Goerner’s mailing address. His neighbor Betty Klenck Brown had shown Hathaway the notebook in which she, as a fifteen year-old girl  in 1937, had transcribed what she believed were radio distress calls from Amelia Earhart. Betty had tried many times to get someone to pay attention to her story. Hathaway thought that Goerner might listen.

Thirty years later, John Hathaway tried again.  Recognizing that the events described in Betty’s Notebook fit media reports about TIGHAR’s hypothesis, he contacted Executive Director Ric Gillespie. He later provided TIGHAR with his handwritten drafts and Goerner’s replies.