If you have read our book Amelia Earhart Betrayed or followed our articles on our website, then you know what we think happened to Amelia. Here is what the average person commenting on Yahoo thinks about the Earhart mystery of her disappearance.
“No one knows for sure. Most people believe that she crashed her plane and died somewhere in the pacific. There are a lot of theories, some believe that she was captured by the Japanese and killed. Some believe that she moved into a rural area somewhere in the world and lived her life out and died a natural death…” Nick
“According to the thousands of websites dedicated to her and her death, she was flying across the Pacific and disappeared.” Derek B
“Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive” Bob (not our Bob 😉 )
“She and Elvis live in Alaska.” Curious Cat
“bermuda triangle” Aiden
“Shot down by midget pigmmes!” Alfonso
“Most likely by drowning or by injuries sustained in the crashing of her aircraft…” Jay
As you can see, most people are still misinformed. We are dedicated to keeping her memory alive and airing our views. We would love to hear from you.
This was E-mailed by Filo Vanvce
According to many, AE didn’t take a wrong turn, and she did fly up and down the parallels she sent to the Itasca, but she wasn’t in the vicinity of Howland Is.
Whether due to wrong calculations based on a mis-represented light height made by Noonan, and/or stronger then estimated head-winds… or… if she’d been photographing Tinian, Saipan and other Japanese-held islands in the Northern Mariannas for the US Naval Intelligence Dept., she made a deliberate Northerly turn for a reefy atoll. It didn’t resemble Gardner Island, but it held promise of an emergency landing with fuel running low… and maybe it was far enough East that the Japanese might not spot them or the aircraft until contact was made with American or friendly shipping to effect a rescue… after all Guam was quite close to the SSW.
The landing near Milli Atoll wasn’t the smooth reef top expected, the aircraft was badly damaged but its starboard engine remained above water, and that supplied the generator which allowed the radio to be used – until the tides slowly seeped in shorting out the batteries.
There were some injuries beyond the first-aid kit onboard. Amelia may have cracked some ribs and taken a hit to her forehead; Noonan had damaged a right knee and and also struck his forehead sufficiently to require stitches to stop the bleeding. At some point they took to the rubber 2-man dinghy and headed to shore, in the bare hope of finding helpful natives. That just didn’t happened… as many natives were paid small sums by the Japanese military, for their fish, and for information. Not a Catch 22 situation, but more ‘catch two fliers & their aircraft’ and hope for a bigger reward.
Unfortunately, if any Japanese records were seized post-war, they became the property Naval Intel exactly like the Marines who swore they saw the aircraft in flight after their 1944 battle to take Saipan.
They further stated they found Amelia’s briefcase in a safe and her personal papers & pilots license in a Japanese Officer’s home, but Naval Intel got these also! We know that in Garapan city, there were/still exist two separated jail-cells, one marked Noonan’s and the other Amelia Earhart’s.
We also know that George Putnam, Jr. made a special trip to Saipan while with the military in 1945.
Presumably to search for clues – what he found has never been published, only alluded to in Sally Putnam Chapin’s “WHISTLED LIKE A BIRD”. We do know that in 1939, Amelia Earhart’s mother admitted she’d been informed her daughter was captured by the Japanese. We can assume this came from Adm. Nimitz, rather than Adm. Halsey, because of letters passed between he and Otis. If she knew, no doubt husband, George did also, yet he stayed silent, even after visiting Saipan – so we might assume that the secret would have died when he passed away in 1958.
About this time, two other men began researching Saipan; learning some of its secrets and assuming more from the Marines’ interviews and some not so small amount that was by then folk-lore told by eye-witnesses during the “years” Amelia remained a ‘captive’ on Saipan. At least 4 books were written on this subject in the 1960-’70s. The Baltimore Sun did a series about their findings with 8-photos from Saipan pretty-much explaining AE’s final demise.
The “Cold War” seemed to dampen further interest until 1987 when the Government of the Islands, now a part of American Pacific Territory, provided artwork and issued a series of stamps combined with First Day Cover releases showing the progression of the flight from Lae, its diversion to Milli Atoll, capture of AE & Noonan and removal of the damaged aircraft by a Japanese vesssel which was used to retrieve reconissance pontoon aircraft. The name of this Japanese vessel matches one the US Navy contacted for any assistance during their search N.E. of Howland Is. (the “Koshu Maru”)…
If there was a “cover-up” by the US Navy, did they do a lengthly search, knowing AE & Noonan were already in enemy hands? Have they all the AE/Noonan material recoverd – still hidden … except the Electra, which the Marines say was burned by Navy guys in odd uniforms, and then buried amongst all the US and Japanese scrap on Asolito airfield by the Sea-Bees? And if researches now on Saipan dig in the right spot and recover an identifiable chunk of the Electra, will we know the truth? No further comment required – we live in an age where the government is not run for the people, by the people, nor longer answerable to the people of America. Perhaps the Saipanese will someday have a museum in which all this information is kept and available to tourists – it won’t be run by the US Dept. of anything, but built by private donations & funded by the islands, formerly Japanese territory since 1914!
Filo Vance
Thanks, Filo. We are with you on this one.
COMMENT FROM RONALD BRIGHT
Based on 15 years of research,including the Mili and SaIpan claims, I am convinced she went down short of Howland and her last signal at “5″ indicated she was about 20 miles NW. She didn’t,t have enough gas to go 700 miles to Mili and with her transmitter working failed to send a new option’. Koshu personnel and logs do not reveal a pickup, and no radio analysis by US disclose a pickup.
See my views in the Nat Geo TV program of the Search for Amelia Earhart.
We appreciate you view, but politely disagree. Bob