Do you have any plans to do a recap of all of the evidence from all of the Niku expeditions up through the Niku 6? I think a lot of newbies like myself would be interested in getting the bigger picture.
I plan to write a follow-up to Finding Amelia that will do exactly that. It will be a big project.
When the search planes did not see Earhart, Noonan or the Electra on Gardner on July 9, 1937, it does not necessarily prove that Earhart was not there but unless persuasive evidence such as DNA or identifiable airplane parts are produced, then Lambrchts’ report may withstand the test of time. Thus far the sum of the evidence that you are proffering is circumstantial and hearsay and would not be persuasive in a legal setting or the court of public opinion. Even DNA evidence would be circumstantial and subject to challenge. The nearest thing to direct evidence that you could possibility find would be the airplane itself.
Black’s Law Dictionary provides numerous definitions of evidence along with case citations and evidence codes from various states. In a nutshell the most concise definition is “all the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, is established or disproved.”
It appears that you have listed supporting evidence on many pages of the web site and a summary of evidence in a narrative form in the Jan 2004 TIGHAR Tracks. The most recent is a paper published online in October 2009, “What happened to Amelia Earhart, The Case for Nikumaroro” that lists seventeen reasons supporting the Niku hypothesis. It would be beneficial to see a single complete specific list of the items that you have determined to be relative evidence, pursuant to the rules of evidence and civil procedure, listed as exhibits A thru Z, that you would submit if you were asking for a declaratory judgment or ruling that confirms your hypothesis. You have stated that you plan to write a follow up to Finding Amelia that will recap all of the evidence thus far. This is a very good plan if you do a good job and present your case in a convincing manner with a complete understanding of the rules of evidence.
In general, the rules allow for the admission of relative evidence only. For example, you list as supporting evidence, the statement that “What Lt. Lambrecht couldn’t know was that there should have been no signs of “recent habitation”. The real item of evidence that would be admissible is the report itself not your spin on it. The report is documentary evidence that the search planes saw no signs of Amelia Earhart on July 9, 1937. What you would need to document and submit is evidence to support your statement “should have been no signs of recent habitation.”
A possible summation of your evidence that would be somewhat persuasive is the radio logs of the Itasca where Earhart relates that she is flying on the 157/337 line and documentary evidence that there was sufficient fuel to reach Gardner. These two items would be persuasive in indicating that Earhart was headed in the direction of the Phoenix Islands seeking an alternate landing point. The submission of the Pan American papers indicating the reception and intersection of bearings from the Phoenix Islands would be supporting evidence. From that point forward there is nothing further that is persuasive that the Electra landed on Gardner or any other Island other than the testimony that for the radio on the Electra to transmit, it must not be in the water.
To prove your case and you have the burden of proof, you must have much more and much stronger evidence and it just may be impossible to do due to the lapse of time and the environment that you working in. As Dr. Tom King has stated, there could be a point of diminishing returns.
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Topic: Gardner: Most compelling argument? Biggest missing piece? (Read 97595 times)
