What if TIGHAR is right ? - and this time comes back with the conclusive, no-way-it-can-be-discounted, any-idiot-artifactTM? What effect will that have on what I have dubbed The Earhart Conspiracy Theory Industrial Complex - TECTIC for short.
When it comes down to it, the conspiracy-type personality doesn't want to consider anything that might disprove their viewpoint, especially facts.
Let us suppose this senario. Two planes
Four aviators. Two directions. Amelia was the decoy flight. Or cover story. The other flight ended up in or on Mili Atoll. This was something that came to my mind the other night.
Which is sad. Because all of us want the same thing, ultimately - to find out what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.
QuoteWhich is sad. Because all of us want the same thing, ultimately - to find out what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.
I'm not so sure Monty. Certainly there are many who simply desire to find out what happened and see their final chapter written. But beyond that, I think a lot of what fuels the TECTIC fires is the desire to be "the ones who solved the mystery" or at least be on the team that had it right all along; the "winning" team as it were.
The level of vitriol that TECTIC directs at TIGHAR continues to amaze and dismay me. The furor raised over the recent Smithsonian article is just one example. The sheer viciousness of the comments, many of them pointedly personal, makes it clear to me that there will most likely never be common ground where we can all meet in the middle.
Which is sad. Because all of us want the same thing, ultimately - to find out what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. They deserve to have the final chapter of their story written.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
What got me. Was the way the bashing was done on other websites. In there presentations the bashing was strict and broke up the story that was being told. My first year in college one of our assignments was to go to college events (plays etc). We had to write two paragraphs about each event. One was strictly what the event was about. The second was our thoughts on the event. As a critic basicallyOne of the most valuable contributors (over 4,000 great posts) to a site which contains TIGHAR bashing and vitriol has now had it and is pulling himself and his thousands of fantastic photos completely out from the site.
So the way they had mixed their bashing with the subject of the article made me sick. Not only of that article. But of the whole website and theories presented.
However you are right disproving other theories are one way to sway others that your theory may be more credible. And that can draw advertisement to your theory.
How to do all of this is all in how it is presented.
(From above site)<....>But something I cannot tolerate or stand by and see happen, no matter if it's my business or not, is to see people use an internet forum (such as WIX) to accuse and slander other people and/or organizations <....>
Hatred is always unhealthy, for both the 'hater' and the vehicle containing it.
Art
I'm simply calling into question the very, very large number of Earhart theories that require some kind of conspiracy, be it from the US government, the Japanese government, space aliens or Earhart herself, in order to validate their particular theory.
All of the Coast Guard and Navy after-action reports include heavy-doses of not-our-fault, blame-the-victim. Factual errors and false assumptions abound. There was also a noticeable element of getting-our-story-straight. Commander Thompson's (CO of Itasca) "Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight" is the worst of the lot. Many, but by no means all, of the inaccuracies and self-serving distortions in the official reports are described and documented in Finding Amelia.
Gallagher was initially equivocal about the bones being Earhart's and, in the end, on July 3, 1941 when he was in Fiji, he wrote:
"I have read the contents of this file with great interest. It does look as if the skeleton was that of some unfortunate native castaway and the sextant box and other curious articles found nearby the remains are quite possibly a few of his precious possessions which he managed to save.
2. There was no evidence of any attempt to dig a well and the wretched man presumably died of thirst. less than two miles away there is a small grove of coconut trees which would have been sufficient to keep him alive if he had only found it. He was separated from those trees, however, by an inpenetrable [sic] belt of bush."
But Hoodless judged the skeleton to be "probably not that of a pure South Sea Islander-Micronesian or Polynesian" and no place on the island is separated from any other place by "an impenetrable belt of bush." You can always just walk down the beach. Gallagher's disavowal of his earlier speculation sounds like signing on to the accepted party line.
All of the Coast Guard and Navy after-action reports include heavy-doses of not-our-fault, blame-the-victim. Factual errors and false assumptions abound. There was also a noticeable element of getting-our-story-straight. Commander Thompson's (CO of Itasca) "Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight" is the worst of the lot. Many, but by no means all, of the inaccuracies and self-serving distortions in the official reports are described and documented in Finding Amelia.
2) The British colonial officers (Luke, Vaskess, Gallagher) decided not to report the bones discovery to Americans despite suggestions they were Earhart's remains.