Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence is a 2017 documentary broadcast by the US television network History that purported to have new evidence supporting the Japanese capture hypothesis of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. Its main piece of evidence, a photograph purportedly showing the two still alive after their 1937 disappearance, was soon proven to have been published in 1935, and subsequent showings of the documentary were cancelled.
In 1937, famous aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan embarked upon a planned circumnavigation of the Earth via largely equatorial routes. Departing from Miami on June 1, Earhart and Noonan completed multiple legs of their journey without incident. They arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29. On July 2, the pair took off on the longest and most dangerous leg of the trip, from Lae to Howland Island, a tiny island in the Central Pacific. They never arrived, and a search effort was unable to locate the pair or their airplane, a Lockheed Electra.
The "lost evidence" in question was a photograph found in the National Archives at College Park of Jaluit Atoll in the South Seas Mandate, the Japanese mandate for the Marshall Islands. The photograph includes two European-looking people. The documentary, through a forensic analyst who specialized in facial recognition, posited that it was "very likely" to be a picture of a captured Earhart and Noonan. [1] The Lost Evidence also says that a barge in the background might possibly contain a plane, and that plane might possibly have been the Electra. [2] The photograph was from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and prepared for the 1944 invasion of the Marshall Islands during World War II. The documentary suggested that a ship seen in the background flying a Japanese flag might be the Kōshū Maru , a Japanese military naval vessel, that would have been involved in transporting the captives. It suggests that perhaps the Kōshū Maru transported them to Saipan, where they died in custody. The documentary also cited existing evidence for the Japanese capture hypothesis, such as locals who claimed to have witnessed a plane crash at Mili Atoll. [3] It also suggested that the US government might have known about the capture and covered this knowledge up. [2]
Two days after publication of The Lost Evidence, Japanese historian and blogger Kota Yamano investigated the issue, and published a blog entry that showed the original source of the photograph that the ONI had used: a travel book The Lifeline of the Sea: My South Sea Memoir (海の生命線 我が南洋の姿, Umi no seimeisen : Waga nannyou no sugata), which was first published in 1935. [4] [5] Earhart and Noonan's final flight was in 1937, so a 1935 photo would be unrelated to Earhart and Noonan's disappearance. In an interview with The Guardian , Yamano criticized the work behind the documentary, saying "I find it strange that the documentary makers didn't confirm the date of the photograph or the publication in which it originally appeared. That's the first thing they should have done." [6] Yamano also said that it only took 30 minutes of searching to find the source. [6] On Twitter, Yamano (as @baron_yamaneko) identified the ship in the right of the photo as a different ship called Kōshū seized by Allied Japanese forces in World War I from the German Empire and not the Kōshū Maru of the Japanese navy. [7] [8]
Skepticism had existed even before Yamano's blog post. The National Archives warned that its version of the photograph did not have a date. [9] Dorothy Cochrane, a curator at the aeronautics department of the National Air and Space Museum, called the new evidence merely a "blurry photograph" and cited the existing evidence from radio transmissions that suggested that the Electra was at least close to Howland Island, 800 miles away from the Marshall Islands. [1] Author Fukiko Aoki, who researched and wrote a 1982 book, Looking for Amelia, was similarly critical before the revelations from Yamano. Aoki located an elderly officer, part of the 1937 crew of the Kōshū Maru, who denied the ship's involvement. Aoki subsequently researched the Kōshū Maru ship log, which showed that it was 1,500 miles away at the time of Earhart's disappearance. It was also argued that to reach and somehow land on the remote atoll where she purportedly crashed would have required Earhart, though low on fuel, to change her northeast course as she neared Howland Island and fly hundreds of miles northwest. Additionally, had Japanese officials found Earhart, they would have had substantial motivation to rescue and return her, considering her fame. [10] The claims of a U.S. government cover-up also came under criticism; the documentary prominently mentions "a report dated January 7, 1939 that Earhart was a prisoner in the Marshall Islands." [11] TIGHAR, a group that advocates the Gardner Island hypothesis of the disappearance, investigated the 1939 government report, which was not hard to find, and found that it was a report on an obvious prank—an implausible tale found in France from someone who did not identify themselves. The message told of being kidnapped by the Japanese, having his crew killed, finding Earhart in custody, then being sent to Europe on an unnamed Japanese ship. [11] TIGHAR wrote that the photo was "neither lost nor evidence" and that the picture had been "exactly where it should be, and was exactly what it was labeled to be, a picture of Jaluit Harbor," criticizing the "lost and misfiled photo" element of The Lost Evidence as well. [12] [13] [6]
In response, The History Channel cancelled rebroadcasts of the show, announced it would not be available on streaming or on-demand platforms, and stopped scheduled airings of the show in Canada and the United Kingdom. [14] It wrote in a press release that "HISTORY has a team of investigators exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart, and we will be transparent in our findings ... Ultimately, historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers." [14] [15]
As of December 2017, no response had come from the History Channel. [16] : 3:20 [17]
Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence was broadcast on July 9, 2017, and had 4.3 million viewers, a high number for a History Channel show. [18] Several news reports provided publicity for the documentary as well, saying that the Earhart case had possibly been solved, causing a burst of renewed interest in the case. [19] [15]
Howland Island is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1,700 nautical miles (3,100 km) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. Together with Baker Island it forms part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The island has an elongated cucumber-shape on a north–south axis, 1.40 by 0.55 miles, and covers 1 square mile.
Austronesian settlers arrived in the Marshall Islands in the 2nd millennium BC, but there are no historical or oral records of that period. Over time, the Marshallese people learned to navigate over long ocean distances by walap canoe using traditional stick charts.
Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.
Nikumaroro, previously known as Kemins Island or Gardner Island, is a part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon. Nikumaroro is about 7.5 km (4.7 mi) long by 2.5 km (1.6 mi) wide. The rim has two narrow entrances, both of which are blocked by a wide reef, which is dry at low tide. The ocean beyond the reef is very deep, and the only anchorage is at the island's west end, across the reef from the ruins of a mid-20th-century British colonial village, but this is safe only with the southeast trade winds. Landing has always been difficult and is most often done south of the anchorage. Although occupied at various times during the past, the island is uninhabited today.
Frederick Joseph "Fred" Noonan was an American flight navigator, sea captain and aviation pioneer, who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. As the flight navigator for famed aviator Amelia Earhart in their pioneering attempt at circumnavigating the globe, they disappeared somewhere over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937.
Mili Atoll is a coral atoll of 92 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. It is located approximately 78 kilometers (48 mi) southeast of Arno. Its total land area is 14.9 square kilometers (5.8 sq mi) making it the second largest of the Marshall Islands after Kwajalein.
The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Republic of Kiribati. Their combined land area is 28 square kilometres (11 sq mi). The only island of any commercial importance is Canton Island. The other islands are Enderbury, Rawaki, Manra, Birnie, McKean, Nikumaroro, and Orona.
USS Pollack (SS-180), a Porpoise-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pollack, a food fish resembling the true cod, but with the lower jaw projecting and without the barbel.
History, formerly and commonly known as the History Channel, is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company's General Entertainment Content Division.
Chuuk Lagoon, previously Truk Atoll, is an atoll in the central Pacific. It lies about 1,800 kilometres northeast of New Guinea and is part of Chuuk State within the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). A protective reef, 225 kilometres (140 mi) around, encloses a natural harbour 79 by 50 km, with an area of 2,130 km2 (820 sq mi). It has a land area of 93.07 square kilometres, with a population of 36,158 people and a maximal elevation of 443 metres (1,453 ft). Weno city on Weno Island functions as both the atoll's capital and the state capital, and is the largest city in the FSM with its 13,700 people.
Gerald Bernard Gallagher was a British government employee, noted as the first officer-in-charge of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, the last colonial expansion of the British Empire. Gallagher spent much of his career on Nikumaroro, an island notable for its connection to Amelia Earhart.
USCGC Itasca was a Lake-class cutter of the United States Coast Guard launched on 16 November 1929 and commissioned 12 July 1930. It acted as "picket ship" supporting Amelia Earhart's 1937 world flight attempt, and was the last vessel in radio contact with her as she was supposed to be reaching Howland island in the Pacific. In 1941, it was transferred to the United Kingdom and served as a convoy escort in World War II as HMS Gorleston.
Irene Craigmile Bolam was an American banker and resident of Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. In 1970, a book that was soon widely discredited set forth an allegation that she was Amelia Earhart. Bolam denied the claim and took legal action against the publisher, resulting in the book being withdrawn.
Elgen Marion Long was an American aviator and author who set fifteen aviation records and firsts, including his 1971 flight around the world over both poles. He received the FAI Gold Air Medal for his accomplishment. He developed a "Crash and Sink" theory explaining the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. For over 35 years, Long researched the last leg of Earhart's flight in an attempt to determine where her Lockheed Electra crashed. He and his wife Marie K. Long documented the people and data involved in the disappearance, a collection that is held by the SeaWord Foundation.
Taroa Airfield was a major air base approximately three miles long and one mile wide on Taroa Island in the Maloelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The runway, which spanned the length of the island, is still in use today and known as Maloelap Airport.
Amelia is a 2009 biographical film about the life of American aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The film stars Hilary Swank as Earhart, and co-stars Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Joe Anderson. Most of the story is told in flashbacks before ending with Earhart's disappearance. The film was directed by Mira Nair and based on The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell. The film received mainly negative reviews.
Ann Dearing Holtgren Pellegreno is a professional musician, teacher, author, lecturer, and farmer. In 1967, Pellegreno and a crew of three successfully flew a similar aircraft to complete a world flight that closely mirrored Amelia Earhart's flight plan in 1937. On the 30th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, Pellegreno dropped a wreath in her honor over tiny Howland Island and returned to Oakland, California, completing the 28,000-mile (45,000 km) commemorative flight on July 7, 1967.
Flight for Freedom is a 1943 American drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray and Herbert Marshall. Film historians and Earhart scholars consider Flight for Freedom an à clef version of the Amelia Earhart life story, concentrating on the sensational aspects of her disappearance during her 1937 world flight. The film's ending speculated that the main character's disappearance was connected to a secret mission on behalf of the U.S. government. As a propaganda film, the Japanese characters in Flight for Freedom were portrayed as devious and evil.
Kōshū (膠州) was a survey ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy. From 1904–1914 and 1915–1921, it served as a cargo ship; from 1921 until 1940, it acted as a survey ship. It sailed as the Michael Jebsen from 1904–1914. It is named after Jiaozhou Bay in China.
Naval Base Marshall Islands were United States Navy advance bases built on the Marshall Islands during World War II to support the Pacific War efforts. The bases were built by US Navy after the Marshall Islands campaign that captured the islands from the Empire of Japan. By February 1944 the United States Armed Forces had captured the islands. Most of the airfields and other facilities Japan had built were destroyed in allied bombing raids and naval bombardment. US Navy Seabee Construction Battalions arrived as soon as the area was secured and remove the debris. The Seabees quickly repaired, built and improved the airfield/runways and seaport. Seabees often worked around the clock to get airfields operational so that fighter aircraft and bombers could start operating. The bases were used for staging upcoming campaigns and for repair.