Preponderance of evidence defined
http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1586&bold=%7C%7C%7C%7C
What Doug said.
It can be parsed to death, but at the end of the day this pursuit will likely be about where it is today, choose your poison as a witness.
To expand on my comment of this artifact and its circumstances being 'interesting', I'll add that the whole picture is decidely compelling to me. Just MHO, of course - and further to Ric's comment, we'll have no end of challenges to tickle away at 'what else it might be'. More power to 'em, I 'spose, to each his own.
Having prepondered this and much more I continue to see Gardner / Niku as 'the place to look' if I were to hope for finding ruins of Earhart's last flight. Others differ - whether they wish to merely have me and others take another objective look or to actively ping away at any confidence others might have in what TIGHAR offer, I can't know so well.
What is striking, notwithstanding those who merely promote objectivity, is why any would bother wanting to chip away here, if that's the case: chip away at what? This is where "
the Earhart Industrial Complex" seems to step in: there are
definitely others going about this
chase in their own ways, and
perhaps as they see it, competing for public affections and dollars.
Perhaps? Most distinctly, they
are competing for affection and dollars, else we'd not see the pleas for attention on the open web. It's a free world (well, some of it - and we're supposedly still at the hub of that) so nothing wrong with some competition, one supposes.
Far fetched to believe 'competing interests' would visit here to post or challenge? Not at all - at least
one of our favorite naysayers is a champion today for a current
'alternate hypothesis'. That's fine, don't get me wrong - the man remains a friend and I believe even an enthusiast for my own enthusiasm (as I am for his) even if we believe in turning over different areas of heaven and earth to find that lost bird.
So where do the current challengers fall in all this in terms of intent? Personally it doesn't matter to me. I appreciate the reasonably mannered and well-thought out challenges and offerings of well-researched information, and am content to let the chips fall where they will, as I value the quality of the chase above all else.
Which leads me to one more observation where all these 'competing' efforts are concerned: none of the others are offering me one shred of tangible anything to 'preponder', only TIGHAR has put up sherds and scraps for us to whittle away at. That's fairly ballsy of TIGHAR in my view and I like it. The others have 'ideas' that vary from very intelligent possibilities to borderline nutty, or worse (in my view... tin hat please) - and not one of the others welcomes the kind of challenge that TIGHAR accepts on these pages. Not knocking anyone else or their efforts, just making a personal observation: this is also rather ballsy of TIGHAR and frankly it gets my deeper affections and a few modest bucks now and then; I'm a bit hard pressed to find the same enthusiasm among the others where that kind of offering is not made. TIGHAR stands alone in terms of accepting public criticism, in whatever form.
Goerner was close to Nimitz; Nimitz intimated whatver feelings he had about things and fed Goerner's thoughts in some way - sounds heavy, but not one moldy blindfold or shoe heel has turned up on Saipan to-date. Goerner believes TIGHAR oversimplifies things...
Others 'just know' it had to be crash-n-sank - and some 'just know' where that had to be...
Others see targets in the sonar readings of former searches...
Consider that none are alone in these things - including TIGHAR, which did not 'make up' the first theory of the USN (a Gardner landfall possiblity). Nor is Goerner and his concern for simplification not respected - including that someone as bright as
Hooven believed in a Japanese intervention (at Gardner Island, of all things...).
Lots of smart people. Lots of pointers. Lots of cross-encouragement, actually, among those who care to search - so one does naturally wonder, what of people who constantly work across the grain of those who seek? Do they do so, or do they merely wish to enhance the depth of the effort?
Short of the obvious troll, maybe that simply depends on how one 'takes' the offering. But what is odd is the 'competing effort' reality and the nature of some of the challenges now and then - it really does remind one that competition is alive and well.
All over a Kansas girl who disappeared in the vastness of the Pacific in 1937, who, to keep this relevant by a sliver, did use 'stuff' that is consistent with the 'sherds and scraps' we've been discussing on this very site for some time and with a great deal now of depth. That peculiar interest may be a book in and of itself.
So back to the topic - cool stuff - and indeed, my own preponderance puts it way up the ladder of interest in sniffing out what happened to Amelia Earhart - how very odd that these lady-like things of the right vintage turned up where some wretched castaway was apparently finally rendered by coconut crabs many decades ago. How very odd that the more good folks like Joe study these things, tell-tale remains suggest commonality to the kinds of things that aviatrix was associated with - didn't like freckles and was camera conscious.
And how unique that it can be discussed to such depth in a place so easy to access - thanks, TIGHAR - you are alone on that stage.