Quote:
Geez-Louise! Don't they ever give up?
So they found a piece of aircraft metal, with great publicity (anyone remember the article in LIFE?) that this came from AE. But the rivet patterns do not match a Lockheed. So this must be a REPAIR added to the aircraft by a non-Lockheed approved, and non documented, event during the flight. That claim has been pretty seriously dismissed, but a GLINT OF METAL in a photograph adds new life to that explanation...
What TIGHAR needs is a piece from the manufactured airplane, not something that MIGHT have been subsequently added. The possible repair without any remains of the original Electra begs a question.
What is really disappointing here is that the press is not using any kind of skeptical thinking in their analysis of the story. AND TIGHAR, NOT AE, IS THE STORY. While searching for the Nungesser and Coli aircraft in Maine years ago, TIGHAR became famous for jumping to conclusions. (One story I heard, and I am a scientist based in Maine, was that they found a seashell, and were pounding on doors at the local university to determine that this seashell came, as it must have been from, FRANCE). The piece of metal is another of numerous great examples of conspiracy thinking, instead of good application of Occam's Razor (the explanation that relies of fewer assumptions is more likely). The metal piece is more likely to be explained by any of a thousand possibilities than to be from the Electra. This, however, does not get stated, and the reader is led to believe that Ric Gillespie is the genius that he advertises.
There is a good subject for a book, if anyone has the time and talents.
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