I know there is still a lot of frustration surrounding Niku VIII, but I have already started thinking about what the next step might be.
I keep finding myself returning to the bulletin from September of 2012,
“Better Than Average Luck” (which happens to have been released shortly after the discovery of the debris field, and I feel may have been passed over by many people a little too soon.) Here we have a real-life sequence of events that is as close to the TIGHAR hypothesis as could be asked for. So my suggestion is this: assuming that no game changing results are obtained from the Niku VIII data, why don't we try searching for
that plane? I'm not saying that TIGHAR should immediately plan an expedition to Seringapatam Reef to search for an aircraft that really isn't lost, but instead start out by contacting those who dive or have dived on that reef to see if any aircraft pieces have been seen, then go from there. If people have dived on Nikumaroro, (remember the
Cook photo?) then I'm sure there has been activity around Seringapatam. If the ST-18 Croydon plane can be located, that would tell us a lot about the condition and location of Earhart's Electra. Did it stay in relatively shallow water? Did it float for a while before sinking? Is it still in one piece? If it is in pieces, could those pieces be recognizable in sonar imagery after 80 years in that environment? The reef is only 200 miles from Australia and seems to be a lot more accessible that Niku, so one would think it to be a lot less difficult to get equipment there if it is deemed worthy for a visit. In my opinion it is looking more and more like finding a piece of the plane is our best shot at definitively solving this mystery, and any guidance for the search in an environment like Niku's would be worth the effort. Given the lack of aluminum wreckage on the atoll and the recent discovery of lightweight copper sheeting from the shipwreck in shallow water, it seems more likely to me that the plane traveled at least some distance before sinking.