If you do a search, it becomes immediately clear that Nonouti is one giant flat, occassionally punctured by a large grove of trees. Beautiful sandy beaches that seemingly stretch on forever, in large places barely covered by water at low tide. Google Earth has a nice picture of Noumatong Island...at least, the half that isn't covered by a cloud.
I wonder how much tourism there is there. There are some pics by a German gentleman of the coast of the island, and a recent fishing expedition that claims to be the first tourists to Nonouti (but their story sounds like the standard "real experience" canned tourist adventure that assures they were anything but the first).
As we're lazying about on a Sunday afternoon, I remember that somewhere, back there in the dust, was another story related by Ric or one of the other TIGHAR folks, about having a drink with a Navy pilot who talked about seeing an old WWII era plane crashed on beach of some no-name island, but when Gardner was described to him, the guy got confused and embarrassed and said he must remember wrong.
Who knows...probably nothing left to find at this point anyway. Obviously, if there was a plane there, then the German photographer would have seen it while walking around the beach shooting pictures.
I stick with the official theory of TIGHAR, but this is interesting to think about.