Amelia Earhart
When news broke of the apparent death of Amelia Earhart, it became an international sensation and a great tragedy for the United States. Just like the world’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana, claims of cover ups and conspiracies soon followed. Already a pioneer for women in many ways, the conspiracies explaining Amelia Earhart’s fate have only cemented her place in history. Rumors that she was a U.S. spy, captured and killed as a Japanese prisoner of war as well as secretly returning to the United States and living quietly as a New Jersey banker/pilot named Irene Bolam, have only fueled our thirst to learn what really happened to this amazing woman.
The facts surrounding her last flight have led many researchers to believe that Amelia Earhart and her flight navigator Fred Noonan either died at sea or were able to land their aircraft safely on a small island in the Pacific. Unfortunately, the latter only delayed their untimely death by food poisoning, injury, dehydration or a combination of the three after efforts to locate them with the U.S. military and Coast Guard failed.
According to records, on 2 July 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan where on their last leg of their flight around the world in Lockheed L-10E Electra twin engine plane and scheduled to land on Howland Island for refueling. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca was already on scene and was tasked to guide the aircraft in and refuel her. The aircraft never arrived, and the last known transmission from Amelia Earhart happened at 8:43 AM local time. The message read “ We are on a line of position 157/337, will repeat this message, we will repeat this message on 6210 kcs. Wait.” It was clearly apparent from her voice that she was frustrated and unable to hear any responses.
The mystery starts here. What happened to her? One interesting fact is that a garbled transmission that sounded like Amelia Earhart was received by operators on the island of Nauro in the evening of 2 July 1937 on the same frequency Amelia Earhart said she would transfer to. In fact, over 200 transmissions that may have originated from Amelia Earhart where received in the next few days, although most of them were identified as hoaxes.
After discovering Amelia Earhart’s aircraft was equipped with extra fuel tanks, the International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) narrowed the choice of possible landing sites to the island of Nikumaroro, Kiribati, formerly known as Gardner Island.
Island of Nikumaroroknown as Gardner Island.
There are many theories as to why they believe Amelia Earhart was able to land here. The first is based on the examined course the aircraft was taking when she made her final broadcast. The island would have been visible to Amelia Earhart at some point. The second is a report detailing an attempt by the British to colonize this island in 1938. Evidence was found that someone had lived there. Colonial records from 1940 also confirm that bones of what appeared to be a Caucasian female matching Amelia Earhart’s height were also found on the island. A sextant case, a woman’s shoe sole and early 20th century makeup was also found on this supposedly uninhabited island 900 miles east of Nauro. Furthermore, airplane parts have also been recovered that would have been installed on the Electra, but no proof exists that they came from this specific aircraft. Since that time, the bones were sent to Fiji and were eventually lost in 1941.
TIGHAR conclude that due to the tide variations on the island, the aircraft would have been eventually swept back to sea. Once Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan perished, the coconut crabs would have removed any remaining human evidence.
References: Earhart’s Resting Place Believed Found, Lost Histories, Amelia Earhart Mystery Solved
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