Ric Gillespie
Historian, pilot, research director, expedition leader, author, and Executive Director of TIGHAR
Historian, pilot, research director, expedition leader, author, and Executive Director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), Ric Gillespie is also an accomplished public speaker. Ric is widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on the Amelia Earhart mystery and his PowerPoint presentations have entertained and informed dozens of audiences large and small. As the leader of over three dozen aviation archaeological expeditions in North America, Europe and the Pacific rim, including nine voyages to Nikumaroro, the uninhabited Pacific atoll where mounting evidence suggests Earhart died as a castaway, Ric is a rare combination of adventurer/scholar and master story-teller.
The True Story of Amelia Earhart's Disappearance
Historian, pilot, research director, expedition leader, author, and Executive Director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), Ric Gillespie will guide you through the clues and research on Amelia Earhart’s mysterious disappearance. Ric is currently leading an expedition to find Earhart’s plane off of a Pacific atoll. His talk will include the findings of this year’s expedition.
Q&A sessions following his talks are always lively, after which he typically signs copies of his book Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance. Published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press, Finding Amelia has been hailed by Stanford University Pacific scholar Professor Mark Peattie as “the most detailed and factual account of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance and the numerous failed attempts to find her that we shall ever have.”