Showing posts with label Fred Noonan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fred Noonan. Show all posts

Wednesday

Here we go again....


Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Can he find Amelia Earhart’s airplane?

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard will lead a major expedition to the remote Pacific in hopes of discovering the famed aviator's fate.

Best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic, Robert Ballard will bring his proven undersea search strategy and high-tech research vessel, E/V Nautilus, to the hunt for Amelia Earhart.
PHOTOGRAPH BY EMILY SHUR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared more than 80 years ago, on July 2, 1937, during the second to last leg of their around-the-world flight. After taking off from Lae, New Guinea, in Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, the pair aimed for tiny Howland Island, just north of the Equator. But they couldn’t find it, and despite many attempts, no one has been able to find them.
Now Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic, is planning to search for signs of the missing aviators. On August 7, he'll depart from Samoa for Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island that’s part of the Micronesian nation of Kiribati. The expedition will be filmed by National Geographic for a two-hour documentary airing October 20.
The National Geographic Explorer at Large brings a state-of-the-art research vessel, the E/V Nautilus, and extensive underwater expertise to this historic search. In addition to locating the Titanic, Ballard discovered the remains of John F. Kennedy's World War II patrol boat in the Solomon Sea, the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic, and many ancient ships in the Black Sea, as well as hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos.
People have been looking for Earhart ever since she went missing. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy scoured the area by ship and plane for two weeks. George Putnam, Earhart’s husband, enlisted civilian mariners to continue the hunt. Eventually the U.S. government declared that the plane had most likely crashed and sunk into the Pacific.


Apologies for sounding sarcastic.

But really? 

Bob Ballard is teaming up with Tighar to find the Electra... at the bottom of the sea? (I spent two hours with the editor of the National Geographic, as well as two reporters laying out the following details - at the time they told me that if "Someone came to them with a "new theory" they were directed to "run in the other direction as fast as they can." Not my quote - theirs.)

Let's break this down for a moment... and Bob, if you're reading this, congrats, I wish you the best of luck...

...but listen up.


Mike Harris, you may remember him; intrepid adventurer, filmmaker, hired Bob to be part of his own search for the Titanic.  At the time, Mike had great ideas about where it might be - and took Bob directly over the ship... but they did not see it at the time.

A still from Mike Harris' initial footage.

Mike had already done a number of trips to find it - ran out of them, but then Bob found a new sponsor, WENT BACK to the place Mike Harris had gone and found it.  (I'm not telling any stories "out of school" - Bob knows this to be accurate, and doesn't take away from his finding the Titanic.  That's how things happen.)

But Mike Harris knows where Amelia is located.  

I think Tighar has done a fantastic job of putting a website together of research. It's where I discovered in the diary of a ham radio operator, she had written on the first page "230 Miles NW" - which was the same number I found in "Last Flight" when she was "200 miles NW of Dakkar" and on a test run of the Electra was "200 miles NW of where she thought she was (according to Paul Mantz.)  We hear later on in Les Kinney's research with a different radio operator (in a previous post) that indeed, when she finally made it to safety - or so she thought - we was 400 miles off course to the NW (where Mili is from Nikumaroro).


Let's look at the record, shall we?  It's an extensive record, and everything I'm about to say is backed up by eyewitnesses.

I can tell you where the Electra is.  I've reported it consistently and repeatedly.  Here - Bob, my gift - this is a blueprint, and if you follow it and come to a different conclusion, happy to hear it.  But when  you get to the end, you're going to have to ask me where she's buried - because I know that as well.

Amelia turned from Howland for Plan B (as reported by Les Kinney) - which was to fly the Gilberts, the nearest landing strip (Nikumaroro).  Alas, she was already 250 Miles NW of where she thought she was - but the coming storm passing to the north of Howland helped blow her to Mili atoll.  

Where running on fumes, she landed the Electra.

Landed the Electra on a long airstrip (at low tide) of an atoll. A feat of great piloting.  An amazing feat from a great pilot.

Someone claimed they found this on the cell in Garapan. Tom Devine
claimed he saw it.  Whoever carved it did so for her birthday.

The brake assembly broke. Pieces of it were found by Dick Spink, a Seattle schoolteacher who brought those pieces to an NTSB investigator who ON CAMERA proves beyond a shadow of doubt that it came from her plane.  That footage exists Bob. I suggest you look at it.  The pieces were identified by an aviation expert (who has testified before Congress).

Two islanders were eyewitnesses.  Some of those eyewitnesses were interviewed in a book by a South African journalist (I have a copy) but he interviewed the Queen of Mili as well.  Two islanders saw her land the plane and reported it.
NTSB Investigator claims this piece found on Mili fits exactly with his own piece of an Electra
that exactly matches Amelia's.  As he put it "There were only two made that were in that part of the planet.  If this was found on Mili, it could only have come from her Electra."

Then Dick Spink and Les Kinney and Mike Harris returned to Mili.  They found more pieces of the Electra as well as an islander who reported that "40 Marshallese men" were ordered to move the plane to a Japanese barge. (the rail cars used to transport it are still there - the drag marks were visible from satellites until the island was swamped recently). 
Veteran Andrew Bryce was told by a stevedore he'd transported the Electra.

I interviewed a veteran Andrew Bryce, USN who worked alongside a stevedore in 1944 who claimed he was one of those islanders who "moved the Electra to the barge which took it to a Japanese ship."

The Kyoshu.  

Les Kinney (former Federal investigator) has tracked down the ship's records and found that it was docked in Jaluit, when Bilimon Amaron (who Mike Harris personally interviewed on camera) reported that he was sent aboard the ship to tend to Amelia and Fred's wounds.  A Marshallese congressman also saw the plane aboard the ship - where it had been transported.  The plane was then transported to Saipan.
Mike Harris shot this footage - a still from his interview with Bilimon Amaron, who tended to her wounds. We interviewed Bilimon's business partner of 40 years (from Boston). He says on camera
"We all knew the story. The man was above reproach.If he said he tended to her wounds, he did."

Amelia and Fred were taken by seaplane where they landed in Saipan.  I have filmed two eyewitnesses (one still alive) who saw her come ashore, the other was told the identical story by his father. Their stories line up.  She was interrogated - Fred was presumed to be the "real pilot" or the "real spy" - and was tortured and executed for being so.

She was put in a cell in Garapan prison.  I've been in her cell - it's the only one that's been stripped or white washed in the entire compound - but I have eyewitnesses on camera who saw her incarcerated there.
One of two cells she was incarcerated in.  This was the cell with her and Fred. After his execution she was moved to a different cell.  

She spent years in that cell. I have two Saipanese (who don't know each other) who both reported seeing her transported by Japanese truck just prior to the war.  The truck carrying her and two other US pilots (those are part of the record,one was shot,the other beheaded) who were with her. As the man says on camera "I was 12 but it's not something you see every day.  A white woman dressed as a man blindfolded and being guarded by soldiers." 

The truck parked in front of his school for 30 minutes - both he and his brother are still alive and can recall it specifically. Another man in another school told us the same story on camera. (Mike Harris took me to Saipan to find 15 new eyewitnesses.) We interviewed the son of the nurse who tended to her wounds, we interviewed a worker who saw her in prison as well as saw the Electra at Aslito field.

Wire Operator in Marine HQ decoded the message "We have found Amelia Earhart's airplane."
Not something he'd ever forget.  He also guarded the plane, saw the same briefcase.

Yes, the Electra was taken to Aslito. I've filmed over a dozen people who saw it there. Including a US Marine who decoded the messages that it was found - then was ordered by his CO (whose uniform hangs in a glass case at Quantico) who ordered him to guard the plane.  Another GI corroborated the conversation he told me on camera about people wanting to "see Earhart's plane" and how he stopped them with the threat of his pistol.  "Orders is orders" he said.

Doug Bryce saw the Electra with his own eyes (and was with other GI's.) It was
being guarded in a hangar on Saipan. (He was one of 6 on camera who saw it.)

I interviewed on camera a GI stationed on Saipan (Doug Bryce) who drove with some pals to see the plane.  He described the location of the hangar, which I was able to corroborate in my trip to Saipan.  In total, I have six people on camera who saw the plane - and 12 in print who watched it destroyed. I have on camera the man who found her briefcase and passport in a safe - carried it for two weeks and turned it over to naval intelligence.  I have the wire operator who was in the tent when the briefcase was brought in, who told the same story.
The briefcase that Robert Wallack turned over to Naval Intelligence
seen by Julious Nabers.
So you see - I know where the Electra is.  

You're not looking for it in the right place.  You can find it if you want - that would be great - but I not only know where it the wreckage of it is located, I know where her body was moved to.  What you may not be aware of is that the two GI's who "dug her up" (as reported by CBS newsman who wrote "Searching for Amelia" Fred Goerner in 1963) those two GIs "only found an arm and a partial ribcage."

Fred Goerner did the initial research. Fred told a colleague of mine
that he got a letter from  then Congressman Don Rumsfeld claiming
"everything he'd found was true."
Why is that?

Because she was moved.

If you want to know where she was moved to - I suggest getting in touch with me.  You can look all you want in the ocean, all you want on Nikumaroro (Elgen Long suggested that artifacts will be "planted there" to make it appear she has been found - I found that to be a bit beyond the pale, but it is his words verbatim, and told me what the object would be) but she was never there - Fred was never there - neither of them sank to the bottom of the ocean or were on a deserted island.  Sorry. 

What happened to them deserves to be told.  But it won't be if you begin by looking for them underwater. They were never there.

I applaud your desire to solve the "mystery." I applaud National Geographic for getting involved (even after I spent two hours explaining what the eyewitness evidence shows.)

But it ain't a mystery if you know where she's buried and where the Electra is currently located, is it?  Happy to share it with you mon ami.

Stay tuned.

Saturday

Hacking the Afterlife to speak with Amelia Earhart

This is one of those moments when my Flipside research crosses paths with my film work.

Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart on their last journey together
I can't begin to describe the emotion I had after three different mediums answered the same odd questions I had them ask directly to Amelia. I've been researching her story for 25 years, and have found evidence of what happened to her after she disappeared, but is not public knowledge. (Some of it will be featured in Sunday's History Channel show from Les Kinney and Dick Spink who had similar paths.) 

Smithsonian - AE in Color


Without meaning to, I had access to three different mediums (Pattie Canova, Jamie Butler, Jennifer Medlyn Shaffer) and as an experiment - not being well versed in mediumship, I thought "Why not ask the same 20 questions to Amelia through three different mediums and see if her story changes?"

As I report in "Hacking the Afterlife"  the answers did not. But beyond that, while asking the question "so what happened to you? How did you die?" (Pattie had said "stomach illness" Jamie said "She's telling me not to focus on the manner of her death but on how she lived" then said "Amelia is telling me she won't reveal how she died to me now, but if the person who wrote this question wants to talk to her privately, she will" (that's me and I did 2 years later while transcribing the session and hearing it for the first time) and Jennifer said "She's showing me a stomach illness. Dysentery?")

During the Jennifer interview "Amelia" added that two GI's had dug up her body on Saipan (in 1944) but had only recovered "an arm." I was familiar with the accounts from Fred Goerner's book "Searching for Amelia" where in the 2nd edition he hunts down the two GI's and they confirm they dug her up, but made no mention of only recovering an arm.

A few minutes after my interview (on film) with Jennifer, I was driving away from her office and got a phone call from a former NTSB investigator who had been given access to this research that will be featured on Sunday's show. He said "Rich, everything you've been saying about her being arrested and incarcerated is accurate. But I noticed something unusual - in the documents, it said that the GIs who dug her up only recovered her arm." Literally seconds after hearing that detail from Amelia, it was being repeated to me from someone who had read a document detailing it.

Six months later, I found a published interview with the two GI's (Chicago Tribune, UPI Jan 1977) where the two GI's said "off camera" that they had only recovered her arm and a partial rib cage. 

I asked "Amelia" point black - "So where is the rest of you?" I fully expected something like "buried at sea" or "on a ship that sunk in Okinawa" but she didn't say that. She had Jennifer draw me a map - of Saipan, where I had just spent four weeks filming eyewitnesses - and she drew a location that I knew exactly what she was talking about. I had been there. She explained why she was there.


Hopefully one day I'll head back there and xray that spot, see if what she's saying is accurate or true - we had permits to excavate the airfield where the Electra is, but ran out of funds. But when someone asked me recently "So why aren't you on the next plane to Saipan to dig up her bones?" 

I replied "What's more important? The fact that Amelia's body is recoverable, that her bones still exist? Or that I was able to communicate with her in real time and prove that she still exists as a person? That we don't die? That we all exist once we leave the planet, and we are all accessible by means if we take the time to figure out how to communicate with ourselves "back home." What's the bigger story here? That Amelia was incarcerated and died on Saipan? Or that she still exists on the Flipside, and we can talk to her directly?"

That's why I'm in no hurry to get back to Saipan. 

Yes, I know where she's buried (or so she indicated). But more importantly, I know where she is now, and she's having a hell of time with her pals on the Flipside. 

I know how controversial this comment is - but seeing her in these color pix brought back the memory of that moment a few years ago, thanks to Jennifer - thanks to my friend Abbie Adams Yaffe who 30 years ago said "No one's told the story of Amelia Earhart and you should do that..." and while she may have disappeared 80 years ago, she's precisely where she wants to be at the moment. (or so she says.)

If you want more details about Amelia and what the research shows happened to her check out "EarhartOnSaipan.com"

Tighar at it again!


No, wait!  We didn't miss Amelia's plane.  We found a debris field near the island where we've been taking people to for the past 20 years!  Hold on!  Don't leave yet!

During the invasion of Saipan, US Marines found her plane.
I can't fathom why the media keeps buying this story. It's hilarious.

Consider the facts.  These trips to Gardner Isle have resulted in a comb, freckle goop, some turtle bones.  Nothing else. Really? You think that if she had actually been there, there might have been anything else?

There's been a deep sea expedition - millions have been spent on finding - nothing.  Oh wait. A debris field. "Could this be the resting place of Amelia Earhart's Electra?" Oh my!





And how did this come about? A photo dug out of the archives, of what may or may not have been Nessie, or a piece of an aircraft in 1937 in the water.  So the guy who took the photo - he didn't notice it, just happened to catch this landing gear bobbing in the water.  What could it be?

I don't even get the logic of what we're talking about here.  A photo of what may or may not be a landing gear in the water near Gardner? What the heck does that have to do with Earhart's Electra?  It's crazy.  There's not a single shred of any evidence, eyewitness or otherwise that she went anywhere near Gardner.

Wow.  Denial is not a river in Egypt.

and now - for some other details - actual eyewitness reports from people who saw her, saw the plane, and saw what happened to it.  C'mon guys - reporters - get out your pencils.  Do some homework, please!

Over 200 islanders saw her or Fred Noonan after 1937 in and around the Marshall Islands.  These people have been interviewed in books and on film. (Oliver Knaggs, many others, Fred Goerner, etc).

US Marines found her plane on June 18th, 1944 at Aslito airfield.  If you watch the film that's referenced here you will see them speak for themselves on camera.   They decoded the message that said they'd found her plane (and not some look alike plane) they guarded her plane, and they destroyed her plane.

Full stop.
Bob Wallack, US Marine, found her briefcase on Saipan in 44.


They buried it off the runway at Aslito airfield.  They covered it in dirt.  The aluminum has not deteriorated.  It is still there.  The runway hasn't changed. The documentary film "Earhart's Electra" SHOWS WHERE the spot on the runway is.  You want to become the person who found AMELIA EARHART'S AIRPLANE?  Don't go to Gardner.  Don't go undersea.  Take some equipment, get some permits and start digging where these US Marines claim they saw her plane, saw it destroyed on the runway.  It's within a fifty yard radius of the maps in this film. It's still there. Waiting for someone with a shovel. Get to work.

End of story.

Honor her memory properly. Tell the truth.
Have a nice trip, and don't forget to thank me at Oscar time.

UPDATE:

Well, here I am on Saipan and we are digging for AE's Electra.. I got a comment from Tom King, the chief researcher at Tighar about this post... from last August.  It's Feb 19th, I've been on Saipan for three weeks, our crew has been here for six.  I've interviewed 15 different islanders who saw a European woman, or an American flyer, or Amelia Earhart after 1937.  That goes along with the 200 or so that Fred Goerner, Oliver Knaggs, Don Wilson, etc have collected over the years.

Don't get me wrong.  I respect the science behind Tighar's research.  I just don't understand the logic of it.

Here's a reply I wrote to someone who sent me Tom King's report on their research about eyewitness reports on Saipan....

 I've been working on the eyewitness accounts for 30 years. What Tom King's report is missing is pretty fundamental - Devine was not the first GI to see the plane.  He may have been the first person to report it (and pretty adamantly as well, reporting to his congressman, calling the media and everyone he could find to do so after the war - not exactly someone out to make a buck from his account).  Devine has details in his account that are factually incorrect, but that doesn't make his entire testimony incorrect.

For example, in the official govt record on the reply to Devine's accusations, they claim because he inaccurately identified a fisherman's hut at Susupe, his entire account was suspect. (Special agent Patton's report from 1960)  I find this kind of reverse reasoning silly, and not worth examining.  It's not that Devine saw the plane on Aslito airfield - it's that six other GI's saw the plane.  Devine corroborated a number of details that the other GI's claimed.  So that makes his testimony worth examining.

The first people to see the plane at Aslito were Marines on June 19, 1944. I know that detail because the wire operator who decoded the message did so for Col. Clarence M. Wallace on that date.  As he said to me during his interview in Tupelo Mississippi "I remember it as if it was yesterday."  Combined with numerous other corroborated details he gives, I found his testimony, Douglas Bryce's testimony, Andrew Bryce's testimony, Robert Wallack's testimony and many others (as recounted in the second of Devine's book (with M. Campbell) where he solicited accounts from GI's who'd been there) credible and verifiable.

I'm here on Saipan interviewing people in their 80's who recall these events. Some are chomorro. Some are American veterans. And I've just found a Japanese man who claims he was here when she was executed.  I'm tracking down his details as we speak.

So we are left with - why ignore the eyewitness accounts?  It's not just Devine.  So far we have 12 GI's who claim they saw her Electra here.  Are they all liars?  Are they all besmirching their uniform by making up this fantastic detail that her plane was here?  To me it borders on the ridiculous that people would not follow up on these reports.  The only logical conclusion that I can get from people not following up on the over 200 eyewitness reports (from Georner, the priest's extensive interviews with Matilde Arriola and others, Don Wilson's many people, Oliver Knagg's filmed interviews in Mili, Jaluit, Mike Harris's interviews (always incorrectly ascribed to TC Brennan, who was just accompanying Mike) - the only possible reason people have not followed up on these is "egocentric americanism" - if a person doesn't speak English then their account must be suspect.

At least I hope that's the reason and not some more nefarious conspiracy to obfuscate the facts.  I choose not to follow that path, as my experience working with people in the defense dept, homeland security and CIA - (during my research for the film "Salt") is they love to solve a mystery as much as the next fellow.

I wish the folks at Tighar the best - I'm here on Saipan (EarhartOnSaipan) with a small crew with determination and a desire to know the truth.  We didn't come here with any preconceived idea about WHY she wound up in Saipan. We came because we wanted to follow the evidence.  We are following up on good reporting done by Fred Goerner, by Oliver Knaggs.  We have numerous eye witness accounts that have never been published as to her presence here on the island, we have numerous eye witness accounts by US soldiers who saw her plane, or came across other evidence she was here, we are currently looking at sites that have never been examined before.  And we'll let you know what we find.

Tuesday

In honor of Amelia Earhart's Birthday


It's the 115th anniversary of her birthday.
Google has noted it for the world to remember her.

HERE'S A LINK TO THE DOCUMENTARY AT AMAZON - OR YOU CAN VIEW IT VIA PAYPAL AT EARHARTMOVIE.COM

I'll note it by talking about my theory of what happened to her.  It's different from the details of what happened to her based on eyewitness accounts.  Those are other people's accounts of what happened to her,which I report in my documentary 'EARHART'S ELECTRA: Eyewitness Reports of What Happened to Amelia Earhart's Plane' - it's available through paypal.com on this page - on the right column:

But there's a difference between what happened and why it happened.
Let's start with what happened:


 

She left Lae New Guinea and headed towards Howland island.  The Coast Guard still had the old radio plan that was devised by Harry Manning (Elgen Long's book "The Mystery Solved"), but Harry Manning wasn't on the flight.  And according to Amelia herself (Conversation with Thai Pilots in "The Last Flight") she didn't know Morse Code, nor did Fred Noonan.  The plan that Harry devised had the Coast Guard communicating with her in Morse Code - no one changed that plan, even though Harry left the flight after her crash in Hawaii.

So that's a major screw up.  As she was headed towards Howland, she was off course - a recent theory has come forward that because of the international dateline (the site "DatelineTherory.com" is from a former NASA employee who has worked with the folks at Tighar who are currently searching for her plane in the wrong direction) she may have been already 250 miles off course - this woman plotted her course some 250 NW of where she was supposed to be, but running along the same line where she should have been.  Off the target by 250 miles, but on the same line the target was on.

According to eyewitnesses, her plane came down in Mili atoll - which is a further 200 miles NW of where she last reported her heading.  Is that possible for her to run out of fuel and fly 200 miles? There was also the report of winds that whipped up from a tropical storm - the simple answer is that could she have flown an extra 400 miles as she was running out of gas from Howland? No.  But if she was already off course by 250 miles - then yes, she could have made it.

But my argument in this area isn't whether it's possible or not - the argument is that people saw her plane come down. One was the queen of Mili atoll and she reported that fact to a newsman from South Africa, Oliver Knaggs, who wrote a book in the 1980's about it. (Hard to get the book, but I have a copy).  I also spoke to a cameraman who shot footage for that expeditiion - he said the footage is still in a vault in Florida, due to some kind of financial issue.  Film negative by and large goes into a vault - and should still be there.  But her words were recorded by this fellow and put into his book. 

Combine that with the book that has over 200 islanders who claim to have seen her and Fred Noonan after they disappeared - I have a copy of that book as well - some islanders say they saw "a white man and a white woman with short hair" - others say different descriptions - but the overall effect is that Amelia and Fred were seen after they disappeared.  Specifically eyewitnesses claim they were seen in Jaluit where the plane was taken, and later in Garapan where they were incarcerated.

The Electra made it to Aslito airfield where it was found on June 18, 1944. How do I know that? It's in the interviews.  The day they liberated the field they found the plane.  Everyone knew it was her plane, the GI who decoded the message from HQ wrote it down verbatim: "We have found Amelia Earhart's plane at Aslito airfield."  Not "we have found an aluminum electra that looks alot like earhart's plane" - or "we have found a replica of earhart's plane" - everyone who saw the plane recognized it.  It had only been 7 years since she disappeared, and it was arguably one of the most famous plane in the world outside of the Spirit of St. Louis.
 



So I've uploaded my film - you can purchase it for viewing by clicking on the link.

I am sending a copy to Amazon to put it up there as well, so in a few weeks it will be downloadable, searchable, etc.  Why did it happen? Remains to be seen. I have my own theories, but they're just that - not based on any evidence.... YET.

That's my contribution to Amelia's birthday.  Happy Birthday Amelia!

Thursday

What Really Happened to Amelia Earhart


What Really Happened to Amelia Earhart

Well, there's life in the old girl yet.



I love that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has weighed in on her love for Amelia Earhart.

I think it's fantastic that Ric Gillespie and Tighar.org are going to mount yet another expedition to Gardner Island.  I don't think there's every been anyone with a track record as theirs, that has gotten so many bites at the apple.  In the film business, you make a film and you get no results - you find it harder to make a film.  This is around the 7th or 8th time Tighar is heading off to Gardner to find Amelia Earhart. Go figure.

Let's see. So far they found her shoe. Well, no, turned out to be a man's shoe.  So they said "she was probably wearing men's shoes."  Sorry, wasn't her shoe. They found a piece of plane. They had it analyzed. Not from her plane. ABC financed a few of these trips.  Last year they "found her bones!"  Well, might have been her bones - actually, Ric said in a moment of candor, it's "either hers or a turtles."  The results were "inconclusive."

Oh my God! Now he's got the US State Dept heading off to Gardner isle with him.  I can't believe it. I'm either incredibly jealous (most likely) or incredibly amused.  One of the two. One tiny small bit of detail that they're overlooking.

She was never there.

How do I know that? Well, let's stack up the columns.  On their side, they say the Gardner was on the line that she was traveling when she missed Howland - true - it's about 225 miles SE of Howland.  So far so good.  She could have gone that way.  There's no eyewitnesses to that fact.  And none that saw her or the Electra there after she disappeared.  So that's on the minus side.  On the plus side - tighar.org maintains the most extensive, up to date, excellent site about what happened to AE prior to her disappearance.  I have no qualms with the quality of the sight, and the information there - it's brilliant.

But she didn't go SE to Gardner.

How do I know?  I have read accounts of over 200 eyewitnesses who claim they saw her or Fred Noonan in and around the Marianas after her disappearance.  This is not some theory.  This is not some hair brained notion. These are written and videotaped accounts by islanders who saw they saw her, the Electra, or some version of a white female flyer that looked like her in and around the Marianas. They claim her plane came down in Mili Atoll. (the Queen of the island claimed that along with other folks.)  People discount that she could have made it to Mili - it's 400 miles NW of Howland.  But then why are these islanders saying she landed there, and that the Japanese picked up her plane there?  there's a new theory that proves it possible - it's the time line theory that shows that if Noonan miscalculated the international timeline in his navigation,he would have been 200 miles NW of howland when they were lost.  That means she only had 200 miles to continue on to the Marianas.  Either way - to me, the fact that a number of people saw the plane come down, saw troops arrest her, saw the plane transported - trumps how she got there.  She deserves credit for an amazing feat - landing her Electra on an atoll.  They claim her ship was taken by Japanese barge off the shore and transported to Majuro where it was put aboard a Japanese ship that the US was told was "searching for her" and later that it was far away.  But I have eyewitnesses who place the Koshu Maru in Jaluit - and with the Electra on the back of the ship.  I have an eyewitness who went aboard and saw her and Fred Noonan - attended to their wounds.

Why isn't this well known?

I don't know. Because he's an islander? Because he was half Japanese?  I have no idea. But he isn't the only one.

Then we have the people on Saipan who saw her in her cell on Garapan, we have numerous accounts of her incarceration - and her and Fred's execution a number of years later.  All eyewitnesses.  Then we have the US Marines who found her briefcase in a safe on the island, who then found her plane, the Electra in a hangar on Aslito airfield.  I have 5 of them on film telling their story.  They didn't know each other - and amazingly, they were witnesses to the same events.  And they watched as the US forces destroyed the Electra.

Why?

I have no idea. I don't really care either.  Because I'm not trying to prove anything - I'm just looking at the eyewitness reports and conveying what they say.  I'm sorry it isn't what tighar.org has thought happened to her - it would be infinitely more appealing to imagine her and Fred on a deserted island instead of sitting in a dark cell (where if you go to Garapan prison, they'll give you a tour of their cells - they're still there.)  What happened to her body? It was recovered by a US Navy man who was tasked to find her - he recovered her briefcase, recovered her body (also reported in the Stars and Stripes in 1944 for anyone who's looking), and oversaw the destruction of her plane. I have a positive ID of this man by a US Marine who swore to me "Beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's the man that I saw destroy Amelia Earhart's airplane."  That's a US Marine.  Not a faded photograph of some ship parked off Gardner island that may or may not have some engine part in the background.  My God.  I can't believe I'm still trying to tell this story.

For those of you who think you know this story better than anyone, I'll ask three simple questions.
1. In her book "Last Flight" AE reports of an evening spent with Thai pilots where she reveals to them that she's ignorant of how to work a very important device that's on her plane.  Can you name that device?
2. During World War II, George Putnam was in the Army Air Corps.  He was stationed on an island in the Pacific and he put in for leave for two weeks where he visited an island nearby that might have revealed everything he didn't know about her disappearance.  Can you name either island?
3. According to a Navy mechanic interviewed by two authors, (who later became a California Highway Patrolman) he installed two objects in AE's Electra for gathering information.  It was around the time that she was quoted as saying "Imagine me, being a spy." Can you name the devices?

I've been at this as long as Mr Gillespie.  So I applaud him for gaining the support of the State Dept. But I wish, truly wish, he'd stay open to the possibility, however faint it might be in his mind, that perhaps these stories about her winding up on Saipan might have some truth to them. Because the truth.. will set you free.

Anyways, watch the video. See for yourself.  I worked and was credited on the film "Amelia" as well as Diane Keaton's version - I've done everything in my power to get producers to take a look at the real story - she deserves to have her story told.  She was more of an American hero than we think she was, more than we know - she died in service for her country.  And no one has stood up to salute her for it.


Popular Posts

google-site-verification: googlecb1673e7e5856b7b.html

DONATE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH INTO THE FLIPSIDE

DONATE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH INTO THE FLIPSIDE
PAYPAL DONATE BUTTON - THANK YOU!!!