Hypothesis #1: Amelia Earhart Perished on a Lonely Pacific Island. Hypothesis #2: Amelia Earhart Lies at the Bottom of the Ocean. Hypothesis #3:Who Cares? We're Having a Helluva Good Time Not Finding Her! (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine January 2002

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Hypothesis #1: Amelia Earhart Perished on a Lonely Pacific Island. Hypothesis #2: Amelia Earhart Lies at the Bottom of the Ocean. Hypothesis #3:Who Cares? We're Having a Helluva Good Time Not Finding Her! (Cont.)

It was a long flight back to Santa Fe. By mid-September, Ric Gillespie and his TIGHAR team had returned from Nikumaroro with some moldy trinkets, but little else. That cluster of rusty pixels? Red algae. Nevertheless, like the true Amelia-obsessive that he is, Gillespie refused to acknowledge it as even a minor setback.

"This was the best expedition yet," he told me last fall. "There were no Indiana Jones-type discoveries, but we have found some artifacts that may identify who the castaway was." So who was it?

"We're hoping there is something here that will point to Earhart," he said. "[But] the proof isn't there yet." Gillespie and other TIGHAR team members will spend the next two years poring over their latest finds and contemplating another trip to Nikumaroro—Kammerer or no Kammerer.

Speaking of whom... The last time we spoke, he'd cooled on Hypothesis No. 1. Ever the opportunist, Kammerer is now making noises about putting together his own deep-sea expedition—using Elgen Long's book as his guide, naturally—to beat the Nauticos guys to the punch.

"I've talked to every legitimate expert on the Amelia thing," he told me. "There is absolutely no question that she's in that 2,000-square-mile area defined by Elgen Long. Since she's at the bottom of the sea, there's nothing left but to go and get her." When I asked him how this might affect his media-rights deal with TIGHAR, he all but said it had been scuttled. "I even believe I could get Ric Gillespie to admit that to me in private," he said, referring to the veracity of Hypothesis No. 2. "I know she couldn't be anywhere else—it's impossible!"

Gillespie remains bullish about TIGHAR's chances, though some might call it denial. He laughed at Kammerer's assertion. "I'd be very surprised if somebody could convince me that the landing at sea is the best-supported hypothesis," he said. "There was never wreckage found, not even an oil slick, and nothing even washed up on beaches. Going down at sea would be the logical conclusion if nothing else happened, but there is abundant evidence that something else happened." When I asked him if he's worried about the Nauticos expedition, Gillespie barked, "Nauticos hasn't done anything! They don't have money to do what they want to do."

Guess what? Dave Jourdan does not agree. "There's only one place left to search for Amelia's plane, and it's going to get done," he told me as this article went to press. "I hope it's us." Jourdan claimed that he had several potential investors sitting on the fence, and definite plans to drag his sonar gear across the ocean floor sometime this winter, but he hadn't closed the door on Kammerer's offer completely. "We're getting closer all the time," he said of his search for cash. "I'm looking for someone who will share the fruits of what we find, not take them away. [Kammerer] sees his money as the most important thing when it's the least unique. Lots of people have money."

Predictably, Kammerer believes that both Nauticos and TIGHAR need him more than he needs them. And he expects neither of them to make a dime on the Earhart search, even if they find the plane. Relying on the likes of the Discovery Channel, Nova, or some other documentary-film production operation for income is, he now says, a financial dead end. "The people involved in the search for Amelia have not been effective in raising money, because the way they anticipate making money doesn't make sense to people like me," he declared.

But at this juncture, what, if anything, makes sense in the race to find Amelia Earhart? "What does make sense?" he shot back. "I don't have a clue. But I have some guys with me that have some ideas.

"It's not a question of losing," he added. "How can you lose in this thing? It's such a great adventure! The challenge for me is, can I control the snowball, or will someone else cash in?"

With Kammerer, it's all about honesty. To that end, he recently made an investment in a small magazine company called Circa Media, which publishes Archaeology Today and Dinosaur Magazine. In February, Circa will publish a one-shot magazine called—what else?—Amelia. Kammerer claims it will be the definitive authority on the search for her and her plane. How could it not be? Stephen Titus lives in Colorado. His last article, on New Mexico's Cerro Grande forest fire, appeared in September 2000.

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