https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/amateur-who-helped-einstein-see-light
“You see,” he said, “the light from a distant star will be bent as it passes the nearer star and the effect will be a great brightening that anyone can see with a small telescope.”
Mandl inquired whether Science News Letter would publish his ideas. But then as now, people off the street do not ordinarily possess sufficient scientific credibility to warrant news coverage of their ideas. Nevertheless, Mandl’s science seemed plausible. So Science News Letter’s astute journalists offered to pay his way to Princeton to visit Einstein himself. That meeting took place on April 17, 1936.