Mr. Romig is adopting a Bayesian approach to the problem of Earhart's final resting place.  We have a bunch of artifacts that might (or might not) originate with Amelia Earhart.

One can assign a subjective probability to the likelihood a particular artifact being from Earhart and/or her plane.  That probability, as Marty points out, is an opinion. There are a range of views on what that probability might be. With each new fact we uncover about each item, one's opinion is likely to change.

However, Mr. Romig's essential insight is that Bayes' Theorem shows that if it is one's opinion that there are several artifacts that each have a non-zero (subjective) probability of originating with Amelia Earhart, the (subjective) probability that AE landed on Niku is greater than the probability of any particular artifact originating with her, and that more plausible artifacts raise the overall probability of the Niku Hypothesis being correct.

The Niku Hypothesis does not stand or fall on the provenance of any particular artifact, and conversely, if any one artifact originates with Earhart with certainty, then the Niku Hypothesis is true.

Bayes analysis has several uses.  If one constructs a decision tree, it helps define which uncertainties have the biggest impact on the probability of the Niku Hypothesis being correct, which can be useful for resource allocation. It can also illustrate the impact of new information on overall (subjective) probability of the truth of the Niku Hypothesis.

Earhart, of course, had her secrets. Today, we can see the outlines of some of those secrets. Others disappeared in the Pacific with her.  However, I doubt if we will learn anything new about Amelia Earhart from freshly declassified U.S. government files, though there is always the possibilty that some obscure detail will emerge that was not connected with AE at the time.
   

Recently we've seen alot about opening classified documents in regards to President Kennedy and other things that the government may have slid under the rug the past 60 plus years. One of the things I have found fascinating is with Amelia is her tanasity to give women the courage and strength to do what some men can't do. So heck why not start a ladies flying club and call it the ninety-nines. As many of you know Amelia may have been a mediaocor  pilot..and her landing and communicative skills may have been slight than perfect.. but you have to give this Atchinson girl credit for trying. If there was any cover up in her disappearance it's because of two options. We don't know until those documents are unsealed but what was her intentions with Midway. After all I do recall them talking about figuring a way to refuel in flight. After all the research I have done one of the things I find interesting is Amelia's connection with Eleanor and what was inside that manilla envelope that was in Amelia's closet at home and she told her mother to burn it if anything happened. I personally believe that Amelia got to close to everything and did indeed cost her her life. I personally believe that this is why she left her elephant necklace behind and the documents in her closet. Did she or did she not have something to hide. Only time will tell. But, if the evidence of Itascas radio logs are what they say they are..then Amelia and Fred did indeed land on Niku.

Good Grief! 

Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 04:42 PM EST 09/26/25

I have been asked by many people about the life and times of Amelia Earhart, such an interesting story, and would I consider declassifying and releasing everything about her, in particular, her last, fatal flight! She was an Aviation Pioneer, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and achieved many other Aviation "firsts." She disappeared in the South Pacific while trying to become the first woman to fly around the World. Amelia made it almost three quarters around the World before she suddenly, and without notice, vanished, never to be seen again. Her disappearance, almost 90 years ago, has captivated millions. I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
6:10 PM · Sep 26, 2025
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https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1932148452483317839

As a long time follower of this topic, and a fan of those who share a similiar passion, I commend you for re-igniting the discussion in the forums.
I have a unique connection to the topic. In 1997 I worked at a private aircraft hangar (FBO) at Honolulu Internation Airport (Circle Rainbow Aviation). Linda Finch recreateed Amelia's flight and stored her aircraft (a lockheed electra E) at our facility for a few days.
I pointed out a small vibration related crack in one of her engine cowlings. She let me drill a 'drill start' at the terminus of the crack (it was a fairly short crack).
As a former airframer on aircraft, I was pretty pleased with myself lol.

I am sympathetic with your desire for quantification.

That is one aspect of the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) that has driven great advances.

For like-minded people, the numbers may be consoling.

My problem is that every number entered in the spreadsheet is a judgment call, as is the decision to take some items as originating from the aircraft or crew in the first place. The numbers come from a prejudgment that the item is evidential: the judgment does not come from the numbers.

I worked very hard on tracking every sextant number that we could find on the internet, thinking that the odds against the sextant box not being related to all of the other artifacts at the Seven site were astronomical. I was wrong. The numbers on the sextant box eventually did tell a tale, but it was not the Niku narrative.

I do salute your effort to make a list. That in itself may prove helpful in grasping how much TIGHAR has discovered. I have held the original bones file in my own hands in Fiji, and I saw a tiny sample of Ric's mapping of low tides at Niku against the timing of the transmissions that were probably from AE and FN. Of course, I went to New Zealand and to TIGHAR headquarters because I was already persuaded that the hypothesis is true not on the basis of assigning numbers to elements of the case but by a personal judgment that the many strands of TIGHAR's case do add up, in a non-mathematical sense, to create a rope or a cable that is stronger than any of its components that are weak and inconclusive in isolation.

I hope this offering is not unwelcome or untimely, but I have an enduring interest in determining the combined/overall probability of our hypothesis.

TIGHAR has identified MANY items of evidence, none of which is a "smoking gun" that, when all items are combined, result in a near certainty. Rick has stated this many times in interviews and writings. Although it may be foolish to try to put actual numbers on so many items for which probabilities are difficult to ascertain, it seems to me that, using wide ranges of probabilities for each item, and then combining many items, we could perhaps get closer to certainty and reinforce Rick's claim. The principle is that many items - even that are of very low probability and nominally useless - when combined result in something of real value, and where the initial high individual uncertainties average or cancel each other out (I am no statistician but I believe that is correct).

Attached is a sample (Excel file) of how we might approach putting actual numbers to the combined probability for the hypothesis, based upon all of the evidence that has been amassed by TIGHAR. If it has not already been done, this effort might also provide a record in one place of all the items of evidence (I have wanted this list for a long time). Finally, this worksheet could be a living document that can be updated as new information or analysis is acquired.

Please let me know if you think this is doable and worthwhile.


Thanks for your interest!

Jon

Possible scenario
2-2-V-1 was salvaged from a C-47 crash at Sydney Island by Gardner colonist and used for things like the aluminum inlay in the Mims wood boxes.
When they abandoned the colony 2-2-V-1 and other stuff was wrapped with a wire found on Gardner or elsewhere.  Since it was found near the channel blasted for the abandonment, this wire bound package could have fell overboard when they left.
It is also possible the fatigue failure was done on Gardner Island. The other 3 failures occurring from the C-47 crash and its salvage on the Sydney.
Tom Palshaw analysis has a picture of the wrecked C-47 wing with torn metal exposed.
https://istigharartifact2-2-v-1apieceofac-47wing.yolasite.com/
Tom noted "It was assumed that the fatigue failure on artifact 2-2-V-1 was caused by back and forth bending of the artifact while still attached to the source aircraft. This cannot be proven. The bending could have occurred later.  The fatigue failure lines are so straight as to have another possible meaning. If the artifact had been wrenched from an attached underlying structure the fracture line should have been more uneven based upon the variance of stress at and between attaching fasteners.  It is quite possible that artifact 2-2-V-1 was originally larger when removed from the source aircraft"

Dec- 17, 1943 C-47 crashes on Syndey
Dec 1944  to Feb 1945  John Mims could visit Gardner obtaining aluminum inlay boxes

Question:
Does the aluminum inlay in the Mims boxes match 2-2-V-1?

(My statements below are from memory. Please - maybe it was some other artifact that had a loose rivet. I'm not familiar with searching the new forum layout.)

Didn't 2-2-V-1 also have a incorrectly bucked rivet as well? Wasn't that rivet of a more uncommon size? Wasn't this size also one unlikely to be found on a military aircraft? Even if you can line-up the hole pattern to a possible fit to a military aircraft, why would they patch an aircraft with a smaller rivet?

Under what factory quality control conditions would an incorrectly bucked rivet be allowed? Doesn't this point to  2-2-V-1 being some kind of field mod or patch?

   Randy, thank you for this post and your reference to Ric Gillespie's recent review of the changes in TIGHAR's assessments in the latest issue of TIGHAR Tracks  (July 2025), which I just received in the mail a few days ago.  It's a fascinating story, and this article deserves our careful reading and discussion here in this new Forum thread that you have just begun for us.
   Randy, thanks also for mentioning your recollection of past TIGHAR Tracks articles, which led me to go back to this one, also by Ric, in the April 2020 issue:   [https://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2020Vol_36/TIGHARTracks36_02_April2020.pdf] 
Ric's analysis there is so convincing that I still accept its conclusions, and intend to do so until I am presented with good evidence that the antenna lead-in wire (2-2-V-1a) that was found entangled with our favorite artifact dates from later than 1936-37.  According to Ric, all the evidence then available to us in April 2020 supported the conclusion that it was a pre-war wire.  This fact led Ric into the following line of reasoning, now quoting him (p 19):
   "What is pre-war aircraft fairlead wire doing on Nikumaroro? If the identification of 2-2-V-1a is
correct, the logic is inescapable:
  Both the metal and the wire are aircraft debris.
  They washed up, tangled together, in the massive storm that hit the island February 1990.
  It is inconceivable they are from two different aircraft.
  Artifact 2-2-V-1a is from a pre-war aircraft, therefore, 2-2-V-1 is also from a pre-war aircraft.
Debates about whether 2-2-V-1 is from a WWII aircraft are moot.
   NR16020 was the only prewar aircraft that came to grief anywhere near Niku.
   Therefore, 2-2-V-1 is a piece of Earhart's Electra...."