It's the 115th anniversary of her birthday.
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!
