Hi! I'm a new member. I'm also inexperienced in using forums, so please excuse me if this question has been addressed elsewhere before.
I've moved your post out of the Chatterbox into the Amelia Search Forum / General Discussion because it is a topic that other people might want to talk about.
I'm curious to know how TIGHAR responds to the fact that dozens of elderly residents in the Marshall Islands told Fred Goerner and other researchers that they remembered seeing a caucasian female pilot and a male companion in the custody of Japanese soldiers there in the summer of 1937. These reports seem too numerous to have been contrived or part of some conspiracy. Who else but Earhart and Noonan could the two aviators have been? TIGHAR's theory is reasonable and fascinating, but it's undermined by the apparent credibility of a Marshall Islands crash landing. Any comments?
I've tried to outline the
alternative theories that, if established, would make the
Niku Hypothesis untenable.
I would say that those who claim to have seen AE and FN in captivity were suffering from
Helpful Witness Syndrome. They are undoubtedly persuaded of the truth of their own testimony and would pass lie-detector tests because they are not lying; but the fact that they are reporting what they sincerely and personally believe to be true does not mean that their judgment was correct that the person whom they saw was AE or FN. Those are two separate issues. I myself had said things that I was sure were true at the time I said them but have subsequently found out that
I was wrong. (Note well: those are the three hardest words for a man to say. I offer lessons in Remedial Man Talk for those who have not yet learned how to say those words.) I don't have any trouble doubting the sincere and heartfelt testimony of dozens, if not hundreds, of Helpful Witnesses from any number of Pacific Islands.