For what it's worth, or isn't, the daily newspaper nearest Purdue has this article on the subject.

Jillian Ellison.  "Amelia Earhart Disappeared 88 Years Ago, on July 2, 1937: Purdue Thinks It Knows Where."  Lafayette Journal & Courier, July 2, 1937.

https://www.jconline.com/story/news/local/2025/07/02/purdue-research-foundation-says-it-plans-to-locate-amelia-earharts-plane/84443431007/

Quote from: Randy Conrad on July 03, 2025, 09:21:12 AMI saw this clip a minute ago. I'll have to say how impressed I was by DR. Pettigrew's integrity on including Tighar in this video.

https://heritagetac.org/programs/taraia_object_amelia_earharts_aircraft-71eb03

I watched the video once, and then checked back a few places to clarify what Pettigrew's Tiraia Object hypothesis was, exactly. For starters, he's simpatico with TIGHAR on Earhart ending up at Gardner.

But...he was at the Eugene, Oregon, seminar, June 26-27, 2021,/1/ where Michael Ashmore made a presentation on the Tiraia Object,/2/ and Pettigrew then says, "By mid-July [2021], I drafted a written account of the process that could have transported the Electra from the reef to the location of the object."/3/ So Pettigrew is also simpatico with TIGHAR in believing Earhart to have landed on the reef on the western side of Gardner, but, unlike Gillespie and others at TIGHAR, thinks the airplane wreckage--perhaps with the exception of the Bevington Object landing gear, which he acknowledges/4/--to have drifted into the lagoon to the Taraia peninsula area.

/1/ https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?topic=2186.0/
/2/ Pettigrew audiovideo, link above, at 1:34+.
/3/ Ibid., at 1:56+.
/4/ Ibid., at 9:55+.

Pettigrew then goes on to conjecture that the Electra was transported into the lagoon, to the Taraia Object site, within a year and a half after Earhart and Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937. Specifically, he references the New Zealand survey, and includes photos from that survey to allege that the Electra wreckage was already at the Taraia site by the time the New Zealanders got there. So...when was that? A letter from Fred Goerner to Ric Gillespie, March 1, 1990, identified the survey team having been at Gardner from sometime November 1938 to January 30, 1939./5/ Gillespie in his 2024 book corrects Goerner on both the front and back bookends of the survey interval, indicating that the New Zealanders arrived on December 1, 1938, and left on February 5, 1939./6/

/5/ https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/fred-goerners-1990-letter-to-tighars-gillespie-dont-bring-back-more-maybes-for-publicity/
/6/ Ric Gillespie, One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2024), pp. 257-258.

Such a timeframe doesn't fit with the timeframe of what Emily Sikula told TIGHAR. The first female colonists arrived on Gardner in April 1939. TIGHAR's analysis is that Emily arrived in mid-January 1940, and that she departed Gardner on November 30, 1941. Emily reported that, on two occasions while on Gardner, she saw airplane wreckage on the reef on the western side of the atoll, near the ship wreckage./7/ So that's in conflict with Pettigrew's belief that the airplane wreckage had already gotten from there into the lagoon.

/7/ https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/15_Carpentersdaught/15_Evaluation.html

There's also not much congruence with the John Mims story. During WWII while the U.S. Coast Guard had LORAN station personnel on Gardner and Mims as a PBY pilot was making supply runs to them from Canton Island, fishermen colonists showed him a heavy-duty fishing line leader that had been adapted from an aircraft control cable. They even confirmed his airplane control cable assessment by telling him that it came from an airplane that was present when the colonists arrived on Gardner. Mims asked where the plane was now (mid-1940s), and one of the fisherman just shrugged/8/, as if unable to say. I have a hard time believing that the colonists knew the airplane was where it was when they came to Gardner, and that it got all the way around to the opening to the lagoon, and passed by next to their village and over to the Taraia peninsula, whether that happened before or after Emily saw it on the western reef--without the colonists noticing the movement and incorporating it into their colonial lore so as to yield something besides a shrug. Thus the Emily/Sims stories, even given that they're hearsay, IMHO undermine at least the New Zealand survey photos part of Pettigrew's hypothesis, and even cast doubt on the Tiraia Object hypothesis in its entirety.

/8/ Ibid.; https://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2019/.

Good luck to them, but one (of many) thing(s) that bothers me about this particular case is the location is right across lagoon from the colonist's village, people lived, worked and fished within sight of this location for 20 years and never noticed the Electra's aluminum skin.  That seems extraordinarily unlikely to me, the bits of aluminum scavenged from Canton island show that they would have taken advantage of any raw material they found

I hope the weather is good and there are calm seas when they go in November.
What other things, that do not require a lot of time, could be done while they are there in addition to their primary mission?
I'm thinking since the island is so hard to get to that any expedition should consider how to help other researchers. And not just Earhart related research.
For example:
As a long-term experiment drop aluminum (with rivets that spell "experiment") at various depths to see how they deteriorate or get coral cover or growth over the years.
Place objects of various buoyancy on reef at Bevington Object location (maybe with a long-term tracker) to see where they go over time.  What goes into the lagoon and what goes elsewhere?
Drone survey of the island if it is still defoliated from the recent drought?
What is the health of the coral? It seems to change over the years.
Have any previous experiments been done to study sea level or coral health?

I saw this clip a minute ago. I'll have to say how impressed I was by DR. Pettigrew's integrity on including Tighar in this video. Also using facts and evidence that our group has found over the years. Anyway, it's a must see as now you can tell the Nikumarro theory is becoming more and more conclusive everyday. Anyway hats off to Dr. Pettigrew on his upcoming expedition to Niku! This venture is starting to sound more and more like a contest where you grab a key out of a bowl and try to start a new car!!! All the expeditions and years of research. Oh my!! Just a couple of keys left guys!!! Have an awesome 4th of July!!!

https://heritagetac.org/programs/taraia_object_amelia_earharts_aircraft-71eb03

I, too, wish them well. But as Ric is quoted as saying- we've been there and searched and found nothing. Plus they are basing their hypothesis on a 2015 photo, and 10 years is A LOT of waves, tides, storms and surf to have moved through the passage and into the lagoon. If they discover something- GREAT!! If they don't- it only proves that nothing is in THAT SPOT at THAT MOMENT!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Jeff Lange
#0748CR

In light of this news. Question for you Ric..Does Tighar have any legal control over other would be researchers searching for the Electra or is the entire island protected by the Kirabati Government. I know you and other fellow researchers have gone to great lengths to preserve the integrity and findings on this island but just wandering after the many expeditions and years of research!

A question for the 88th anniversary of the disappearance:

Is there anything technical about harmonics transmission that accounts for three of the credible North American radio recipients being located near major bodies of water...

(1) St. Petersburg, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico;
(2) Toronto, Ontario, on Lake Ontario;
(3) St. Stephen, New Brunswich, not many miles upriver from the Atlantic;

...and two others being located in comparatively high-elevation plateau areas:

(4) Amarillo, Texas, about 3,600 feet altitude, no mountains nearby;
(5) Rock Springs, Wyoming, about 6,400 feet altitude nestled near the mountains?

Came across this news item today"

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/researchers-announce-new-effort-find-amelia-earharts-plane-rcna216286

Wish them good weather (is not November 'round about the start of typhoon season?) and good luck.

Denise...with your comment you just posted....let's just say that the Electra did land with water rising at high tide..and sat there most likely for several days. With the potential for extreme temperatures..how do the fuel tanks react to this environment and do we know what the storage temperature was for these tanks. This is another thing I believe that Amelia and Fred never thought of.