Posted on 07/05/2017 1:25:49 PM PDT by Main Street
A newly discovered photograph suggests legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished 80 years ago on a round-the-world flight, survived a crash-landing in the Marshall Islands.
The photo, found in a long-forgotten file in the National Archives, shows a woman who resembles Earhart and a man who appears to be her navigator, Fred Noonan, on a dock. The discovery is featured in a new History channel special, "Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence," that airs Sunday.
Independent analysts told History the photo appears legitimate and undoctored. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director for the FBI and an NBC News analyst, has studied the photo and feels confident it shows the famed pilot and her navigator. [Amelia Earhart mystery may have new clue in never-before-seen photo] Amelia Earhart mystery may have new clue in never-before-seen photo 6:25
"When you pull out, and when you see the analysis that's been done, I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that's Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan," Henry told NBC News.
Earhart was last heard from on July 2, 1937, as she attempted to become the first woman pilot to circumnavigate the globe. She was declared dead two years later after the U.S. concluded she had crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and her remains were never found. Amelia Earhart Amelia Earhart sits in her Electra plane cabin at the airport in Burbank, California, on May 20, 1937. Albert Bresnik / Paragon Agency via AP
But investigators believe they have found evidence Earhart and Noonan were blown off course but survived the ordeal. The investigative team behind the History special believes the photo may have been taken by someone who was spying for the U.S. on Japanese military activity in the Pacific.
Les Kinney, a retired government investigator who has spent 15 years looking for Earhart clues, said the photo "clearly indicates that Earhart was captured by the Japanese."
Japanese authorities told NBC News they have no record of Earhart being in their custody.
Related: The Search Is Still On for Amelia Earhart 80 Years After She Disappeared
The photo, marked "Jaluit Atoll" and believed to have been taken in 1937, shows a short-haired woman — potentially Earhart — on a dock with her back to the camera. (She's wearing pants, something for which Earhart was known.) She sits near a standing man who looks like Noonan — down to the hairline.
"The hairline is the most distinctive characteristic," said Ken Gibson, a facial recognition expert who studied the image. "It's a very sharp receding hairline. The nose is very prominent."
Gibson added: "It's my feeling that this is very convincing evidence that this is probably Noonan." A newly discovered photo shows a woman who resembles Amelia Earhart and a man who appears to be her navigator, Fred Noonan. National Archives
The photo shows a Japanese ship, Koshu, towing a barge with something that appears to be 38-feet-long — the same length as Earhart's plane.
For decades, locals have claimed they saw Earhart's plane crash before she and Noonan were taken away. Native schoolkids insisted they saw Earhart in captivity. The story was even documented in postage stamps issued in the 1980s.
"We believe that the Koshu took her to Saipan [in the Mariana Islands], and that she died there under the custody of the Japanese," said Gary Tarpinian, the executive producer of the History special.
"We don't know how she died," Tarpinian said. "We don't know when."
It is not clear if the U.S. government knew who was in the photo. If it was taken by a spy, the U.S. may not have wanted to compromise that person by revealing the image.
If that’s Noonan, where is his bottle?
And another thing. They were taking radio bearings which can travel hundreds of miles over open ocean if the mast is high enough. It makes sense they’d home into whatever was in range when they calculated their remaining fuel - distance. A port would have a high mast-mounted VHF radio for ship communications which would carry much further than airport or ship borne radio. Ergo, if their destination radio signal was not received they would head for what was available such as a port’s VHF.
I see four men standing close to each other, two well illuminated and quite clear, the other two poorly lit so they are seen in sillhouette. What they are calling Noonan must be a man with no shoulders or arms and indistinct legs.
He is facing the camera yet unlike the other two men looking the same direction, his face is dark with heavy shadows.
Looking at the ground behind one of men is duffle bag, possibly a mail sack. “Noonan’s body” looks a lot like that white bag and there is some sort of sign partially blocking Noonan’s “face”. Rather than a man I would say thats a mailbag vertically hanging on a hook.
The seated figure could be male or female you cannot see the face.
Not sure where the maybe 38ft object is on a ship.
I would also say if that is Earhart then Noonan is sitting beside her on the dock (blocked by the fat woman). That person does have their head turned as if speaking to someone next to them.
Now I recognize the ship thanks to the Stamp post. Could be a plane on its deck.
I sure hope we find out some day. I think you are right that even those of us who know there is much falsehood involved will be surprised and even more upset than we already are.
Do they put her up in a helicopter while doing traffic? I hate parents that name their child after some famous namesake without realizing the harm done to the child.
Yup.....best to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Don’t be too hard on the parents just yet.
The way the folks currently in the TV personality business roll, “Amelia Ehrhardt” could be merely the young lady’s stage name.
Gotta get the rubes’ attention if you’re going to work the midway, doncha?
Good grief.
“Earhart”, not that other mess.
Ridiculous. Their map was wrong. Their clock was improperly set. And the radio they were to use for homing in on the ship and communicating with it didn’t work. They were dead as soon as they took off.
Earhart was a daredevil more than a pilot and certainly not an aviator.
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There was a story a few years back about an east coast US teen receiving and transcribing their final transmissions via shortwave. And that they were rebuffed by investigating authorities at the time when they presented the transcript. I’m not up on shortwave but I have seen signals skip great distances... As far as this photo goes it’s my opinion that if they were seen by that many people in a busy port this would have been known before now.
I don’t see anything that looks clearly like the plane in the stamp #4 photo. I thought the person all in white was a woman with a big hat but that’s a man with another man’s head behind him. The alleged Noonan appears to be leaning up against the post with one leg up to keep any weight off it. I’m not convinced the person ID’d as Earhart is not a man. Awfully broad-shouldered but then if I was sitting on a dock, I might have my shoulders in a hunched position while my hands held onto the edge for support.
I just don’t see anything here that says “bingo”. I see something that if you are trying to make all the pieces fit, you think is Earhart then you have to find someone you think is Noonan then you have to find something that looks like the plane but if you’re not convinced the first ID is Earhart then the whole supposition falls apart.
GMTA! ;)
Brian Williams was there, getting all those animals into the Ark.
I recently read of an account by an American researcher in New Guinea who was looking for the wreckage of a US cargo aircraft that had disappeared during the war. He found, instead, the wreckage of a Mitsubushi A6M Zero fighter that had crashed in the jungle. The researcher found human remains and, as soon as he could, notified the Japanese government. There was enough left of the Zero do that the airframe and engine serial numbers could be read. Apparently the Japanese are as meticulous at record keeping as the germans because they had no trouble identifying the pilot and coming up with details concerning the Zero’s loss. If there were records involving Earhart and Noonan,, I’m sure thay would have turned up by now.
“The woman standing on the dock appears islamic.”
She reminded me of the local Hawaiians in authentic muumuus.
this was before Admiral Byrd's discoveries,
before Operation Dominic/Operation Fishbowl,
before the UN declared it illegal for anyone to go to Antarctica.
The United Nations uses this map for their logo for a specific reason.
Look at how vast the Pacific is:
Earhart didn't have a chance. 
Ha! Good one.
Janeway was a worse pilot then Earhart. She was off course by 70,000 light years!
Amelia Earhart ping. I believe she crash-landed in the Marshall Islands.
The “natives” have maintained for decades that she was seen captured by the Japanese and marched off to some place. But what do eyewitnesses mean if it runs counter to a preferred narrative?
Not if they murdered the 2 of them IMO. But they do indeed keep good records.
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