[DCBryan1]

Some conspiracy theories suggest she was doing MORE than just "white/OSINT" intel gathering for US government. Also there are reports of radio intercepts that she was in fact alive and transmitting, in code, for years before dying.

Supposedly, The US Navy intercepted Jap diplomatic cables and decoded it with proof she was alive. If the US acted on that intel, they would have turned their hand that we were decoding their most sensitive cables right before the war broke out.

Allegedly, the government knew she was alive and could do nothing...and ran with the "expendable" story that she died attempting to set the record.

[laconic]

Fine, I can understand them keeping it quiet DURING THE WAR and for some time thereafter. But this occurred 80 friggin’ years ago, we are not at war with Japan, there is nothing strategic that could be revealed, and the maintenance of secrecy over such history makes no sense.

[Sans-Culotte]

Some conspiracy theories suggest she was doing MORE than just "white/OSINT" intel gathering for US government.

Sounds a lot like a Hollywood movie that was made during WW2: Flight for Freedom. Rosiland Russell played a pioneering woman aviator who disappeared while on a secret flight for the government.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Our naval intelligence seems to have been asleep through much of the 1930s. I don't think they had a clue to enlist Earhart to do anything.