Updating
Not much has happened.
WASHPOST:
I have not received a response from the writer "Marwa Eltagouri" at the Washington Post so the "educated guesses" of 2016 in reference to estimation of bone lengths named by TIGHAR still stands as reported.
Magnetometer:
It would be impossible to grid and 'walk' a Magnetometer over the surface of the hill in ENB, secondary jungle would have to be completely cleared. I did receive interest from helicopter borne magnetometer people but the tree height seems to be the problem with current equipment being too high above the source to be able to sense the source.
Sponsorship from Australian Companies:
I have tried a few, no answer. It might have been read that Dick Smith was making Jam at the time I think he is now into sauces.
Rodney Rotorslap:
Well, everybody has heard of Richard Gillespie but he has no regard for this project and I say, "Apparently he has no regard." I'll tell you what happened there.
Every little piece of information that occurs in the news about Earhart appears on the TIGHAR Forum within five minutes ....
In 1997 in Singapore, I discussed the project with a P&W Field Rep. He contacted Gillespie and told him of the news that it was a possibility the Electra was on East New Britain. He told Gillespie all the details I had told him including that we had "600 H.P. S3H1 C/N1055 " on the map.
Back at Air Niugini, I received a FAX from Richard Gillespie and in it, he asked me if the engine I had referenced to the P&W Field Rep was the same engine that AIF Veteran Donald Angwin had told him about in 1990 ? At that time in 1990 he had replied to Don Angwin and told Don it was an impossibility that it, the engine, could be Earhart's... and he had been "rude" to Don (Don had said) in his response.
So, here he was asking about it now that I had spoken to a P&W Field Rep. I replied in a "Cannot confirm or deny mode" as I had read about Gillespie and wasn't keen on telling him anything. Don Angwin didn't want any more contact with him over his rudeness and so, neither did I.
In 1997 I did write to the CEO of Pratt & Whitney, the CEO then was Karl Krapek. My letter was headed "Confidential". I told him all about it and asked him for a small sum for sponsorship.
If you've guessed what happened next... Well done !
Krapek showed my Confidential letter to Richard Gillespie and you can guess what he told Krapek.
In 1997, Gillespie had already committed to Nikumaroro Island. Any interference from a project in Australia which had "REAL" evidence instead if "assumptions" would affect his requirement that people give him money.
Now, after all this, you would think that Gillespie would tell his followers that he had received "Two" reports of a WASP being found on ENB (just as he had reported everything he had heard about Spink recently). But "No", nothing appeared in the TIGHAR Forum until 2004 when our news of the ENB Project broke in the newspaper USA Today in 2004, after I had been interviewed by Gregg Zoroya.
It would have been a reversal as in his role of Prophet he was telling his followers that Nikumaroro was the answer and he already had some explaining to do over the US Today article, ie; "Why hadn't he told his members."
Go to Richard Gillespie... ?!?! You unintentionally "jest". Ahhhh...I get you... Someone who hasn't heard of him..Doh ! Der Pfennig ist verdroppen !
David Billings
www.earhartsearchpng.com