In the late underwater archeologist Sir Sidney Wignall's letter to Spence of March 26, 1975, marked "Strickly Confidential," Wignall wrote "With reference to the Hunley. I would strongly advise you not to be seen visiting the site. It is possible that others might attempt to pre-empt you when they see where you are diving." Interestingly, several years later Wignall, who was then searching for John Paul Jones' ship (Bon Homme Richard), teamed up with Clive Cussler for NUMA's first expedition. Cussler had contacted Wignal only after Cussler learned from underwater archaeologist Peter Throckmorton that Wignall had already researched and defined a search area for the historic shipwreck. The NUMA expedition failed to locate the ship in that expedition, which was extremely limited in time when compared to all of the targets they were checking out. The following year, Cussler returned to Wignall's search area for another try, but this time without Wignall. The Bon Homme Richard has apparently been found, and apparently within the area expected by Wignall. However, it was not found by either Wignall or Cussler. It was located by some commercial divers. Unfortunately for over twenty years, the divers' discovery was all but ignored. Most of the archaeologists that the divers had contacted either refused to work with them or simply didn't believe it was the right wreck even after diving the site. It now seems that the divers were right all along and the archaeologists who had dismissed the divers' claims were the ones who were wrong.