June 1st, 1937, the living legend and
so-called “Queen of the Air” Amelia Earhart is met with raucous fanfare at Miami's
municipal airport. She’s already become the first woman to fly non-stop solo across
the Atlantic, and now with her navigator, Fred Noonan, she’s going to try and become
the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. She climbs into her twin-engine
Lockheed Electra and looks to the side; her husband is waving in the distance, with
a look of joy and trepidation on his face. As the media takes snaps and the crowd jostles to
get a better look, she fastens down the hatch and starts the engines. She signals to have the wheel
chocks removed and minutes later the plane is in the air. Next stop, San Juan, Puerto Rico, over
a thousand miles away, and then the world beyond. Except somewhere on her journey, she, her
navigator, and every single part of that plane disappeared. She got much farther than
Puerto Rico; she almost fulfilled her dream, but something happened. The question is, what?
Her disappearance has become one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern times.
Was she captured by the Japanese? Did she become a castaway and die a slow and
painful death? Did she disappear on purpose, change her name, and become someone else,
or did she simply crash into the ocean, for her plane and her body never to be seen again?
Some of our younger viewers might now be thinking, who was Amelia Earhart? Well, she was only
the most famous female aviator of all time who not only broke records but became an almost
mythical figure. She was the inspiration for movies and books; she was a trailblazer who defied
expectations, who greatly impacted the equal rights movement, and whose grit and daring earned
the praise of the president and the public alike. If she was taken captive, she would certainly
have been a catch for her captors. But first, let’s look at how she got into doing things the
people of the times didn’t expect women to do. She was born on July 24, 1897, to a fairly
well-off family in the city of Atchison, Kansas. Her mother was a great influence
on her, telling Amelia and her younger sister that they should not act like good
little girls as their friends did. They could do what they wanted, be who they wanted.
As a child, she loved to explore, go rat-hunting in the local town, and play a bit harder than
other girls did, which got her the reputation for being a bit of a tomboy. At age seven she
took her first flight, a painful one at that. She flew from the roof of a shed inside a wooden
cart she and her uncle had made. Bruised and a little bit broken, she got out of the box and
said to her sister, “It's just like flying!” Life had its up and downs, but throughout her
teens, Earhart never faltered from the path of wanting to do stuff only men seemed to do. One of
those things was flying, but then World War One got in the way. After seeing injured soldiers
when she was visiting her sister in Toronto, the 23-year signed up to volunteer at a hospital.
A year later, in 1918, she was nursing people to health who had come down with the Spanish Flu. She
herself got pneumonia and other health problems, which led to a lengthy stay in hospital and
later at her sister’s home. What did she do with her downtime? She read, and she read a
lot, especially about mechanical engineering. An audacious pilot was in the making.
When she was better, she got the opportunity of a lifetime when in California
she came across the flying ace Frank Hawks. He offered to give the young woman a ride in
his aircraft, to which she said, yes, yes, yes. She later said about that experience, “By
the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground. I knew I had to fly.”
And by God, did she fly. She trained. Ser cut her hair short so as
not to attract too much attention from all the male pilots. She even slept in her leather
aviator jacket to make it look worn out like all the men’s jackets. In short, she became a pilot
and a good one at that. By the time she was 25, she set a world record for flying at an altitude
of 14,000 feet (4,300 meters). A year later, she was given her pilot’s license, becoming
only the 16th woman in the US to get one. Ok, so in 1927, the world-famous Charles
Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic. Earhart saw that and thought,
“I want to do that.” But first, people wanted to see a woman do the same trip as a passenger.
The PR people started thinking about who would make a suitable passenger and they came up with
one Amelia Earhart. On June 17, 1928, at age 31, she got in a plane with pilot Wilmer Stultz.
Together they did the trip and Earhart now found herself being something of a celebrity.
But when they landed her face did not denote much happiness. When asked how she felt she
said, “I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes…maybe someday I'll try it alone.”
We’ll fast-forward quite a few years now and tell you that this woman became a household
name. She got married, she promoted aviation, especially for women, and she became the first
woman to fly solo across North America and back, among other records that she set.
Then in 1932, she did exactly what Mr. Lindbergh had done. She flew solo across
the Atlantic. She set off from Newfoundland in a Lockheed Vega 5B and 14 hours, 56 minutes
later she landed in Ireland close to a farm. A laborer on that farm ran up to her plane and
asked had she come far, her response was, “From America.” He was more than a bit surprised.
It was after that she became even more of a celebrity, even becoming a favorite of First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt. But there was one more mission to accomplish. That was to become the first
woman ever to circumnavigate the entire globe. This is where things get dark. Suffice to
say, back then this was some risky venture. On March 17, 1937. She made her first attempt
with navigator Fred Noonan and Harry Manning. The latter was a skilled navigator but also a
dab hand at operating a radio. As you’ll see, Manning could possibly have ensured
we wouldn’t be telling this story. The trip didn’t go as planned.
The flight left from Oakland, California, and later landed in Honolulu, Hawaii.
When it took off from there on its way to a small island in the Pacific, things went wrong. Some
people said on the take-off the tire had blown, but others said there had been some pilot
error. Whatever happened, the plane was in a serious state of disrepair. It was over.
For the second trip, and this is important, Manning declined to go. He felt too many
things had gone wrong the first time. This judgment saved his life...well, possibly,
if you believe Earhart and Noonan died. They were now without a skilled radio operator.
The two of them took off from Miami on June 1, 1937, and as you know, lots of people were
there to wave them off. They sailed through the first part of the journey, making stops
in South America to refuel. They did the same in Africa, in the Indian subcontinent
and they also stopped in Southeast Asia. When they arrived at Lae, New Guinea, on June 29,
1937, they’d already circumnavigated much of the world. They’d traveled 22,000 miles (35,000 km)
and only had another 7,000 miles (11,000 km) to go over the Pacific. Their next stop would
be Howland Island, a tiny place pretty much smack in between Hawaii and Australia.
The term “the middle of nowhere” couldn’t be more suitable. Nonetheless, the US had built a
small landing strip there and that’s whereEarhart could refuel. The Japanese bombed the island a few
years later, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, so Earhart and Noonan were in good
spirits and ready to leave New Guinea. Close to Howland island, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter
called the Itasca was waiting to guide them down safely onto the landing strip...The
crew would be waiting a long time. That day the skies were thick with clouds.
It wasn’t a good day for flying. On the way, they had radio transmission problems and it
was known that they only had just enough fuel to make the journey. At some point, the Itasca
lost contact with the plane for the last time. That was it. They were gone. For the next 80
plus years, people would be asking what happened to that plane. Why was none of it ever found?
It wasn’t as if an incredibly big search mission wasn’t undertaken. We are talking about the most
famous female pilot ever, a celebrity that was known and loved by people in the US and beyond.
So what are the facts we do know? At one point during the journey, everything was
going fine. Earhart communicated that she was flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet, but she said
the clouds were thick so she said she was going to reduce her altitude. Two hours later, she reported
that she was flying at an altitude of 7,000 feet. We also know there were some problems with
radio communication from the plane to the ship. When Earhart was just 200 miles (320 km) away
she radioed the ship and said get ready for us. That ship was using something called a direction
finder, which is a technology that uses radio to direct a plane. Noonan by the way had earlier
doubted how well this technology worked. Basically, how it does work is two radio
transmitters connect from two vehicles, in this case, a ship and a plane. So, by
doing this, they know how far away they are from each other. What’s important, though,
especially in this case, is that the ship and plane are on the same radio frequency.
It’s also said Earhart was not very familiar with the direction-finding system. One thing for
sure is, while she kept using the radio so her plane could be detected by the ship, the ship
itself at times couldn’t find the plane’s 3105 kHz frequency. The radio guy on the ship said
later that he was “sitting there sweating blood because I couldn't do a darn thing about it.”
But, the plane was so close at that point. In the last call they received from Earhart
she said she thought they were only 100 miles (160 km) away. This is one of
the last things she said on the radio: “ITASCA WE MUST BE ON YOU BUT CANNOT SEE
U BUT GAS IS RUNNING LOW BEEN UNABLE TO REACH YOU BY RADIO WE ARE FLYING AT A 1000 FEET.”
The next call also said that the plane was almost at the island, but they weren’t sure of their
position. Earhart couldn’t hear what the ship was saying, so she requested for Morse Code. A message
was sent and Earhart received it, but she said she still wasn’t able to get a position on the island.
There were more problems with the radio and then there was silence, although, and this
is important, claims were made that they received a signal from the plane,
possibly as it landed somewhere. Some of those signals seemed to lead in the
direction of a place called Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro island), which wasn’t too
far from Howland island. It’s thought they could have also landed on other islands knowing
that if they didn’t their fate was in the ocean. Ok, so here are some interesting
and later some outlandish theories. A massive search operation ensued, with the
U.S. Navy and Coast Guard for months going over 250,000 square miles of ocean, not to mention
all the spots nearby where it was thought the plane would have crashed. They found nothing.
As you know, some radio signals pointed to the possibility that the plane landed on Gardner
Island. This place was uninhabited, although humans had lived there in the past. The US Navy
flew over the island and reported that there were no signs of life, but was there a possibility that
Earhart and Noonan had become real-life castaways? This is what the report said after looking over
the island, “Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and
zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally
taken for granted that none were there.” But it also said this about a lagoon,
“Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her aircraft
in this lagoon and swum or waded ashore.” It was believed she wasn’t there. Then
in 1940, the Brits landed on that island and there they found a human skeleton. They were
believed to be male bones, but unfortunately, those bones were later lost. Still, precise
measurements were made of the bones. That crew also found a shoe and a sextant box,
which is navigational equipment. One of the officers said this about the bones, “The
bones look more than four years old to me but there seems to be a very slight chance
that this may be remains of Amelia Earhart.” Then in 1989, the “Group for Historic Aircraft
Recovery” ended up on the island. After exploring the place, it concluded that someone could have
lived there. They analyzed the measurements of the bones that were found there and concluded
that they were from a European woman of the same height as Earhart. Later, anthropologists
from the University of Tennessee also analyzed the measurements of the bones. In their
statement, they wrote that the bones “have more similarity to Earhart than to 99 percent
of individuals in a large reference sample.” This has also been questioned, not debunked,
however. It’s been an ongoing argument for years. It was later discovered that the sextant box
is believed to have come from the USS Bushnell that was in the area after Earhart went
missing. In 2019, a bigger ocean exploration took place and that didn’t find any of
the missing wreckage of Earhart’s plane. That’s the castaway theory. But what about the
bones of Noonan, or what about the plane? It would have had to have crashed in the ocean
with only Earhart making it to the island. That’s certainly a long shot. You should also
know that as well as the US Navy doing searches, Earhart’s husband sponsored searches of all
the nearby islands and nothing was ever found. What if they landed in the
Japanese-held Marshall Islands? The Japanese could have thought they were
spies. The theory goes that this happened and the Japanese tortured and killed them. It could
be the reason that the plane was never found. They could have possibly made it there with
the fuel they had but only if they’d flown directly there. That’s unlikely, but then
there was a woman interviewed many years later who said she’d seen Earhart and
Noonan being executed by the Japanese. In recent books, other Marshall Islanders
were quoted as saying they saw the two in the hands of the Japanese.
Then in 2017, a documentary came out called “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence.”
It talks about a photo that really exists that shows two people that look at Earhart and Noonan
on the islands. That photo has since been credited to a Japanese travel guide that was published
in October 1935, so it couldn’t have been them. Ok, so what did happen to that plane?
Well, there was the theory that Earhart was a spy for Franklin D. Roosevelt. We know he
liked her, but that theory was just a silly rumor. Possibly the strangest theory is that Earhart
and Noonan flew off together into the sunset and disappeared on purpose. That theory goes
that Earhart somehow survived the flight and changed her name to Irene Craigmile Bolam.
We don’t even know what happened to Noonan. It’s proposed that she became a wealthy banker
from New Jersey under that name. But why on Earth would she have done that, is the question
you might ask? Well, in 1965 a man called Joseph Gervais was asked to speak at an event for retired
pilots. One of Earhart’s friends introduced him to Bolam, and when he met her, he said he knew
right then that she was the real Amelia Earhart. He started to research her past and still thought
she was Earhart. Then, more research led to the publication of the book, “Amelia Earhart Lives.”
This led to a lawsuit, but people didn’t give up. When Bolam died in 1982 a researcher asked
to take fingerprints of her. This was denied. Criminal forensic experts have since said the
women weren’t the same, but that hasn’t stopped more writers from saying this is not true. Bolam
might have had an uncanny resemblance to Earhart and even flown planes, but prior to Earhart going
missing, Bolam had been married twice and had had one kid. How could Earhart have lived two lives?
We’d like to tell you what happened to Amelia Earhart, but the fact is, she is likely going
to be on the missing person’s list forevermore. Now you need to watch, “Did Pan Am Flight 914
Really Land 37 Years Later.” Or, for a very different kind of disaster story watch, “Plane
Crash Leads To Unbelievable Survival Story.”
