There are countless all too real stories of Pacific Islanders who set off to fish locally being swept out to sea and travelling hundreds of miles before reaching land. It happens constantly.

TIGHAR has a hypothesis, TIGHAR does not have any evidence.

Earhart’s plan was that if she could not find Howland Island, then she would turn onto her reciprocal course and head off back towards The Gilberts Islands (now Kiribati). These islands would be difficult to miss as they are 500 miles from North to South and they lay across her flight path in a return. The tale that she would head for the Phoenix Group does not make sense, as they are a scattered group of islands and difficult to hit.

Also, the bones which TIGHAR so ardently mentions as being found in 1940 did not have to be Earhart’s or Noonan’s at all. TIGHAR constantly fails to mention that in 1929, a freighter named S.S. Norwich City ran aground on the reef at Gardner Island and 11 Crewmen were lost attamptingf to make the shore. Only four were buried in shallow graves in the solid coral of the island. A later visit to the island by a New Zealand party, before 1937 made a report that the beach was littered with bones.

The TIGHAR Hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis with no evidence at all.