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Monthly Archives: July 2017

A New Idea About Amelia Earhart

Amelia wearing nurse’s aid uniform, Toronto, 1918

As many of you know, Amelia would have been 120 years old this week, had she flown off course, crashed on a reef, was captured and jailed as a spy, escaped to New Jersey via the Witness Protection Program, faked her death, moved to Florida, and discovered the Fountain of Youth. We can’t prove that none of that happened … yet!

Meanwhile, here is a very interesting take on the matter by none other than Garrison Keillor: A New Idea. In the July 25th Washington Post, he says:

“I need to know about Amelia. She was a sweetheart, a Kansas tomboy who was not out to make a statement so much as she simply loved to fly and feel the wind in her hair. In newsreels, she grins as she climbs out of cockpits, a dashing feminist in the Age of Dowagers. She wore pants. She was lithe and limber. She enjoyed her fame. She flew solo across the Atlantic, solo from Hawaii to California, she was the forerunner of the spirited feminists we’ve known and loved, who bore no grudge against men but prevailed thanks to wit and smarts and perseverance and a terrific smile.”

Please read the rest here. Meanwhile, we’ll keep trying!

Amelia in the News

Excerpt of artwork by Geraldine Aikman.
WCHS 6 News Anchors Lee Goldberg and Amanda Hill

Between bone sniffing pooches, bogus photos, and countless media posts, the 80th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has spawned a lot of news. Echoes of the over-hyped Jaluit photo had hardly begun to subside before the image was soundly debunked. Meanwhile, Nauticos has been working steadily to scan the seafloor near Howland Island where Amelia was headed, seeking her lost Lockheed Electra in the deep ocean. Our last expedition, concluded in April, failed to find any trace of the plane, but eliminated another large area of the seafloor. Though we don’t make a big deal about what we haven’t found, local media has taken note of our efforts, including a very nice article in the local Southern Maine Tourist News, and an interview on Portland’s WCSH Channel 6. We appreciate the support of our friends and neighbors, and look forward to continuing the search.

The Tourist News issue, entitled Secrets of the Sea also included a great article about the coastal environment, threats and survival, featuring wonderful artwork by local artist Geraldine Aikman.

Click image for Nauticos article

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jaluit Photo

There is a lot of Earhart news in the air between a dog-sniffing expedition and the photo that has surfaced suggesting that Amelia & Fred were captured and sent to Saipan. The former is comical. All we can say about the photo is it’s hard to fit with any real data, which clearly shows Amelia’s Electra to have been in the vicinity of Howland Island, the pilot sending increasingly desperate messages as she searched for her landing spot, running out of fuel. To have them actually at Jaluit atoll, over 1,000 miles to the northwest, one would have to assume that the Coast Guard and other elements of the government were in cahoots to fake the reports and radio transcripts. And it had to extend to all levels, as we interviewed the last surviving member of the crew, a cook, who said he heard the words coming from the radio room! Of course, that’s what the conspiracy theorists presume.

 

Others will soon jump to the task of trying to determine the provenance of the photo and second guess the interpretation. A site in the UK has already posted debunking the photo:

The article points out that the photo was taken in the 1940’s, long after Amelia and Fred were supposedly captured and taken eventually to Saipan, where (as the story goes) they died in prison in 1939. Note that the “captives” do not look like they are being guarded and are not wearing the same clothes as Fred and Amelia when they took off from Lae. I have been to Saipan and visited the jail there and talked to a historian who interviewed one of the jailers of the era. He said no Caucasian women were there during that time.

 

Of course, we’ll be among the first to congratulate anyone who comes up with real evidence. Meanwhile, we’ll continue the search for Amelia’s Electra in the deep waters off Howland Island, where we believe she went down.