Why Beyond 37’
Was Formed Beyond 37’ was formed for two reasons: (1.) To group the major Amelia Earhart disappearance theories
into a single fold, and (2.) To determine the forensically plausible ones among them. [For review see the 'Investigative Books'
list found in The History of Amelia Earhart Mystery Research link.]
The
name “Beyond 37’” itself signifies U.S. history’s awareness, of how although Amelia Earhart was said
to have ‘vanished’ in 1937 many credible accounts of her non-publicly realized 'continued survival' did later
surface.
As well, from ambiguous sources, accounts ranging from alien abduction stories to Amelia becoming a prostitute
in Japan have also surfaced over the years. Such ideas are not given any attention here. But the most regarded explanations,
backed by accounts emanating from the region of Earhart's disappearance, profiles of her life and psyche as she readied for
her final 'world flight,' her friend & family attitudes and beliefs, and a few opinions of various personnel involved
with Earhart's last flight were closely re-evaluated by Beyond 37'.
It is necessary to realize how most all 'Earhart mystery' theories managed to employ the
same factual elements to yield their different story versions. [Refer to International News Journalist Rosalea Barker's 2002 Stateside New Zealand article in the 'Press Notices-Testimonials' link,"I felt like I was trying to separate black sheep from white in a
computer game that randomly kept changing the colour of sheep. Just when I thought all the facts had been marshalled in support
of one theory, those same facts would be marshalled in support of another completely opposite one." ] Here, Beyond 37' displays the most viable reality concerning Amelia
Earhart’s 1937 misadventure.
Indeed
only one truth ever did exist, and this website responsibly and without fanfare offers the most realistic portrayal of what
became of Amelia Earhart after she was said to have ‘vanished’ in 1937. However many people, (to include most
mainstream academic scholars) being as misinformed as they have been over the years courtesy of the controlled and 'dumbed
down' plane-hunting media, will still have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees in the realities portrayed here. Then
again it helps to always bear in mind, no matter what Amelia Earhart disappearance theories the national media promoted over
the years, none of them authoritatively represented an officially stated historical
viewpoint. So much is important to understand.
What People Fail To Recall About Amelia Earhart's 1937 Disappearance It is
evident the general public does not recall how the governments of the United States, Japan, and England never 'officially commented' on Amelia Earhart's loss, beyond the July of 1937 U. S. Government's conveyed approximation
of she and her navigator Fred Noonan 'likely' having perished. People also
fail to recall how there has never been an 'official investigation' launched into their disappearance. As well, people forget
how (according to the long questioned 'official' record) all communication with Amelia Earhart's plane ceased while she and
Noonan were still safely airborne.
Also de-emphasized later and all but forgotten, were the 1960s statements made by Admiral
Chester Nimitz about Earhart and Noonan surviving a ground-fall in the Marshall Islands, how the same Marshall Islands were
never permitted to be combed by the massive U. S. military search effort for Earhart and Noonan, and how the communication
lines and the general relationship between Japan and the United States suddenly grew more tenuous a mere five days after the
duo turned up missing; a result of the July 7, 1937 start of the Sino-Japanese war.
So how and why did
the public end up so misled? Some investigators still believe today, the public had been orchestrated to be misled through
the media dating back to the time the event occurred. [Recall U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry P. Morgenthau Jr.'s May
13, 1938 reply words to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's query about Amelia Earhart's loss, "I hope I've just got to never
make it public."]
So it made sense, after some of the true controversial story elements began to surface
in the 1960s and 1970s, new disappearance theories were injected into and promoted equally, if not more by the national news media. So much steered the growing-curious public away from what had been the
rising fire of truth. And within a short time, certain 'promoted' individuals and their theorized
answers evolved into convenient and safe 'media reliables,' even though they lacked presenting anything close to the forensic
reality.
Those 'Safely' Promoted By National Media Outlets In the late 1970s one Elgen Long, a private citizen who would ever support his own crashed-and-sank claim,
began receiving the most national media attention afforded to the Amelia Earhart disappearance case. From then on, consistent
media adulation's were steered his way well into the 2000s. As they were, Elgen Long continuously described to the American
public how he believed he had self calculated the area where Earhart's plane crashed and sank in deep Pacific Ocean waters.
Many private citizen dollars were invested in his various expeditions to locate it. National news sources were
always anxious for his results. Except Mr. Long never found Earhart's plane. It simply did not exist where he said it did,
if it even existed anymore at all. Still, for years Mr. Long's non-controversial claim was favored as the one U. S. national
media reps could always safely rely on.
Since the late 1980s Richard Gillespie and TIGHAR have received a near-equal
to Elgen Long measure of national media attention, Earhart plane-search wise. Mr. Gillespie's claim offered how Amelia Earhart
and Fred Noonan safely ditched on the island of Nikumororo hundreds of miles south of their destination, and they died there
as castaways. Mr. Gillespie is also a private citizen, who self-formed and promoted his TIGHAR club [AKA 'The International
Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery'] to the American public. TIGHAR also received investments over the years, supporting
what eventually became viewed as another errant claim. In time though, the shepherded by the national media public had learned to accept
and support Mr. Gillespie's efforts alongside Elgen Long's, well and above any controversial
investigative research offerings. In said way, by mainly covering the Long and Gillespie offers, the national media fairly
conditioned the American public to prefer the simple solution [Long's 'crashed and sank' version] or the romantic solution
[Gillespie's 'desert island castaways' version] over something that appeared complicated and/or factually buried, such as
the well protected Irene-Amelia reality.
[Another more recently promoted enthusiast, described how Earhart's Lockheed Electra airplane was lying somewhere in
a mountain jungle on the Island of New Britain, northeast a ways from where she and Noonan last took off from Lae, New Guinea.
Though it was once rumored she might have flown directly there, any New Britain airplane 'evidence' was never substantiated.]
So what enabled Elgen Long and Richard Gillespie to receive such consistent national media attention they did year in
and year out? The answer was simple: Again, they offered well presented harmless solutions, to a serious historical quandary
the American public remained transfixed on.
To hesitate before questioning the above summation, and as referenced
earlier, recall in 1965 how Admiral Chester Nimitz had described to CBS Radio Journalist, Fred Goerner that it was "known
and documented in Washington" how "Earhart and her navigator went down in the Marshall Islands and were picked up
by the Japanese." [1966 Goerner book, In Search of Amelia Earhart research,
and later Fred Goerner/Muriel Earhart Morrissey letter exchanges.]
On the other hand, even though since the 1960s the most research, forensic logic, and solid
reasoning has supported the information presented by Beyond 37'; over time Elgen Long, Richard Gillespie, and Bill Prymak
(another private citizen) of the Amelia Earhart Society always derided Beyond 37's consistent backing of the Irene-Amelia
conveyance, to their media contacts and to their sedulous devotees. It seemed they wished for the never disproved Joe Gervais
Irene-Amelia claim to simply go away, as it questioned all plane hunting cottage industry heads, who would otherwise proceed
unencumbered by true history opposition.
As well, such 'plane searching cottage industry heads' may have been observant enough to
realize how when it came to Amelia Earhart, the national media itself was long ago steered away from and disabled of its ability
to dig for the true controversial answers, concerning her real disappearance story.
A Change That Occurred
In The 1990s In the mid-1990s a change in the Earhart investigation matter began to occur. It happened after filmmaker and investigative researcher Tod Swindell
met and formed research alliances with two of the most lauded 'truthful' Amelia Earhart research scholars; one in best selling
Author Randall Brink, and the other in the aforementioned famous Earhart disappearance investigator, Joe Gervais.
It
was then clarification on how the wool had been pulled over the eyes of the public for many years about Amelia Earhart's disappearance
story, finally began to emerge. Before, it had been recognized by the most informed how the history of Amelia Earhart’s
disappearance had been plagued by euphemisms and obfuscations. Or, how the media touted 'theorists' who claimed Earhart, after
her odd non-receiving radio stopped transmitting as well while she and Noonan were still safely airborne..., simply crashed
and sank (Long's), or how she ditched on a desert island and died after the tide pulled her plane out to sea where it sank
in deep water (Gillespie's), or... how on Saipan or on another of Japan's mandated islands, Earhart either died by execution
or sickness after being detained, as in 'held captive' or 'jailed.' It grew to be, where these three different theorized solutions
comprised the main ideas used to slant public opinion away from the historical reality of it all; that being of course, Amelia
Earhart's name-changed survival.
In time, it became hard for the truly inquisitive not to notice how after first gaining
steam in the 1960s and 70s, the Earhart 'continued survival' research had been detoured away from by historical dictum guiding
forces, where by the mid-1980s the other 'theories' had all but taken over, all of them, incidentally, ending with Earhart
and Noonan's sure deaths. (Minus any 'body' or 'plane' evidence, of course.) This also left Elgen Long's and Richard Gillespie's
offers to end up in the safely far-ahead media supported lead.
Of course it had
been observed for decades by Joe Gervais alone, how private citizenry 'support' of the 'sure-death' angles marked the preference
of any and all historical dictum guiding influences of the United States, whom had otherwise remained quiet about the subject
of Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance, not to mention the subject of her subsequent underground return to the United States
as a re-identified person. So ultimately, and wary of it or not, the promoters of the 'Earhart
definitely died somehow' theories became the misguiding influences who prevented the media's realization of Earhart's
true fate. Meanwhile, United States history influences such as the Smithsonian Institute and the National Geographic Society
would acknowledge the existence of the promoted 'Earhart demise' theories to news sources, while always back-door endorsing
only one of them; how it appeared Amelia Earhart likely made her way to her final resting place... somewhere on the bottom
of the Pacific Ocean.
No matter. The true scholarly recognized truth became, Amelia Earhart
did not meet her demise akin to any of the above descriptions at all; she did not crash at sea, she did not die on Nikumororo,
and Japan's Naval Authority did not execute her or let her died of dysentery. Rather, anymore the best available information
described how she was somehow laid low after she was reported missing, she subsequently changed her name and altered her familiar
appearance, and she emerged from the WWII era
to later resurface in the United States. There she lived out the rest of her life in basic anonymity, all be her a still highly
respected person by various people who already knew, and then came to know her after she'd done so, until her death in July
of 1982. It was later realized, while the world
was still at peace she had even 'trial-flown' a few new aircraft prototypes for Japan's naval authority. Amazing.
Hard to accept? Sure it is. Because the body public has been influenced by any and all 'official history' sources since
the World War Two era, (foremost including the Smithsonian, a "ward" of the U. S. Government) to accept how such
a thing as Amelia’s post-July 2, 1937 'survival' did not likely happen.
By now though, the mountain of evidence gathered over the last forty year time span, and more controversially since the forensic
studies commenced in 1997 does speak for itself. In other words, it did happen… believe it or not.
Plain Speaking
By The Clergy And Others Among her closest friends after Amelia became known as 'Irene' was Monsignor James Francis
Kelley of Rumson, New Jersey. Monsignor Kelley (1902-1996) was a legendary historical figure at Seton Hall University where
he had served as its President from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s. He spoke plainly enough in his 1991 recorded interview
with Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, Ret., when he mentioned he was "instrumental" in helping to "free" Amelia,
when he assisted in 'bringing her back from Japan.' Such a statement of his seemed to indicate the possibility of Amelia Earhart
returning to the U. S. at the war's end, as logic dictated it would have been more difficult to 'free' Amelia before VJ Day. (To 'free' or to 'liberate' were interchangeable terms at the war's end, and all
imprisoned Americans, to include General Jonathan Wainwright were liberated after VJ Day.) A few people considered how Amelia
lived among the Imperial Islands, mostly at Maloelap and/or Kwajaeline of the Marshall Islands, before she ended up imprisoned
in the Philippines in mid-1943. Others felt she ended up in a civilian internment camp in China by the end of the war, 'quite
ill.' And others still, believed no harm ever
came her way at all, as unfathomable as it might seem, that Amelia had been considering her public life exodus with Japan's
pre-war understanding, perhaps not realizing in 1937 how World War Two would eventually cause her such problems. It may have
also been the case, where the hidden demise and/or disappearance of the original Irene Craigmile ultimately turned into an
'out' for Amelia, thus enabling her to continue living her life non-recognized for who she once was by virtue of her assuming
said identity.
Originally, in 1970
even Gervais and Klaas suggested the far-out possibility of Earhart having been smuggled out of Japan right after VJ Day by
Archbishop Spellman and Jackie Cochran, while disguised as a catholic nun. But one thing definitely remained clear:
Without access to true records, it proved impossible to ascertain the full scope of where Earhart was and what she was doing
Japan, U.S. intelligence, and Catholic Church wise between the years of 1937 and 1945. Indeed, the entire reasoning for it
all may have been far more, or far less intricately founded than people have thus far conceptualized.
It was once surmised
how an earlier return to the U. S. could have enabled the former Amelia Earhart the time needed to quietly adjust to her future
life as Irene Craigmile. But no matter when she returned, pre-VJ day or post-VJ day, there is no doubt she did so with the
aid of her dear Zonta Sister friend, Attorney Irene Mary Rutherford O'Crowley who was the original Irene Craigmile's Aunt;
and as mentioned with the help of Monsignor James Francis Kelley. Both persons lived in proximity to each other in northern
New Jersey. And it appeared in 1945-1946, when Zonta photographs first started displaying her as the new, healthy, and smiling
'Irene Craigmile' in public, (with her nose procedure done, and cosmetic and sartorial differences applied) she was already
well accustomed to her new identity, one that belonged to a past acquaintance of hers who was the original, Irene Craigmile.
[The no longer attentive Niece of Attorney Irene O'Crowley.]
In essence, the real person to have vanished forever long
ago was the original Irene Craigmile, who it appeared had turned up missing around the mid-late 1930s. If one questions this,
just realize the photographic historical record of Irene Craigmile’s person reveals such a reality in no uncertain terms.
Note as well, if the original Irene ‘died’ back then there appears to be no record of it. So much and more amounted
to Amelia being able to acquiesce her new identity. And it does appear that in closely guarded circles the United States,
Japan, and England were quietly aware of the dupe having taken place years ago. Today however, it is certain very few public-office
servers in any of these three mentioned countries... knows much, if anything about it.
* * * How Beyond 37' Came To Be...
The brainchild of long time Earhart researchers Joe Gervais, Rollin
Reineck, and Tod Swindell… Beyond 37’ was initially named “The World War Two Veteran’s Coalition
of Researchers, The Earhart-Craigmile Chapter.” Retired USAF Major Gervais and Retired USAF Colonel Reineck, both World
War Two vets and Earhart researchers since the 1960s, were members of the 1989 founded Amelia Earhart Society. However, their
changed identity claim about Irene Craigmile Bolam was never endorsed by the AES. Therefore Swindell, who had consorted with
different AES constituents but was never himself a member, suggested they subdivide and form their own outside alliance of
truth concerning the Irene-Amelia subject matter.
When Swindell embarked on his documentary film project on the Irene-Amelia
realities under the heading of "Beyond 37’," a new name for the coalition was also invented at that time.
He filmed extensive interviews of both Gervais and Reineck, of 1970 Amelia Earhart
Lives Author Joe Klaas, famed Amelia Earhart researcher Ronald Reuther, various 99s representatives and more. Joe Gervais
passed away in 2005, Reineck and Reuther in 2007. Their departures left said filmed testimonials among their last, and Tod
Swindell to carry on with their long time collective pursuit of truth recognition.
USAF Major Joseph A. Gervais (Ret.) [1924-2005]
Earhart Investigative Researcher
Born in Tyningsboro, Massachusetts
in 1924, Joseph A. Gervais was of French ancestry.
After WWII broke out he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corp at the age of twenty. He became an excellent pilot during
World War Two while participating in campaigns over Africa and Europe. In his distinguished military career he also served
as a pilot during the Korean War and Vietnam campaign. He logged nearly 20,000 hours of flight time before retiring as an
Air Force Major in 1963.
While a Captain in the Air Force, Joe Gervais began researching the Amelia Earhart disappearance
story in 1960 after reading Paul Briand's book, Daughter of the Sky. He was
stationed in the Pacific at the time. After gaining quite a name for himself as the purveyor of Operation Earhart with his
then partner, USAF Captain Bob Dinger, in 1965 Gervais was invited to New York (all expenses paid for his family of four to
fly from their home in Las Vegas) by the 1930s famous woman pilot and Amelia Earhart's old friend, Viola Gentry. Ms. Gentry
had requested for Gervais to discuss his five years of investigating Amelia Earhart's disappearance at a summer gathering
of the Early Birds of Aviation Club on Long Island. It was a great, well attended event featuring many famous pilots from
the golden age of aviation. And it was there during her entrance to the event, upon his request Viola introduced Gervais to
her friend, Irene Craigmile Bolam who was being escorted by her British husband, Guy Bolam. Mrs. Bolam seemed to be a person
held in high esteem by Viola and other people attending that day. Word had it she was also a 'past friend' of Amelia Earhart's.
Joe Gervais took note of all of this. Then, when he looked into her eyes and gazed at her visage as he was meeting her, he
felt he recognized who she used to be right away. She was older, heavier, and her hair was gray and different, but he could
still see beyond those things.
After arriving back at his Las Vegas home Joe Gervais set out to investigate the past of
Irene Craigmile Bolam. (He would continue to do so for years.) He soon began to realize how the woman known as 'Irene Craigmile'
had been a virtual nobody in the 1930s, and she had only flown planes for a very brief period of time. When he met her in 1965, after he asked her Mrs. Bolam affirmed to
Joe Gervais how she "used to know" Amelia "rather well," and she had even "flown" with her.
Ever curious, in 1967 Gervais wrote to Mrs. Bolam
suggesting his belief of who she really was, or had previously been. In her reply she politely steered clear of his suspicion
writing in the present tense, "I am not she." Yet her handwriting was eerily similar to Amelia Earhart's, and she also referenced two of her friends to him (Viola
Gentry & Elmo Pickerill) while all but cryptically writing, "because they each knew us both well as Amelia Earhart
and Irene Craigmile." Even to her it seemed Amelia was long gone, and only her renamed person of 'Irene' remained. (Or,
as Monsignor Kelley later mentioned of his dear friend Irene, 'she didn't want to be Amelia Earhart anymore.') In the 1967 reply letter to Gervais from Elmo Pickerill (the
Early Birds secretary) he confirmed how Irene Craigmile, Viola Gentry, and Amelia Earhart had all been 'Long Island flying
pals' in the 1930s.
Mrs. Bolam somewhat curiously ended her own 1967 letter to Gervais
this way: "It has always been my feeling the [sic] Amelia Earhart has not passed away completely, so long as there is
one person left alive who still remembers her."
According to writer Joe Klaas during a 2001 interview, after
Gervais met Irene in 1965 he conveyed his story to Klaas. Fascinated by Gervais, Joe Klaas gestated a book idea designed to
profile the long term Earhart investigative research of Gervais and Dinger and Operation Earhart. Klaas recalled how he heard
Gervais relay his account to him about his meeting with Irene, and soon the two were collaborating on their book, Amelia Earhart Lives that would be published by McGraw-Hill in 1970. In it, a photo Gervais took of the
Irene Craigmile Bolam he met in 1965 appeared.
After enlisting the services of a former Robert F. Kennedy attorney
in one Benedict Ginsberg, Mrs. Bolam sued Gervais and Klaas and McGraw-Hill, and she was successful enough to have the book
removed from the stores after only seven weeks of shelf life. No matter, the law suit dragged on for five years until it was
settled by a ten dollar consideration paid by both sides, after Mrs. Bolam refused to comply with Joe Gervais' request for
her fingerprints. This added to her evasiveness, Amelia's past relationship with the original Irene's family, decades of research
and the later forensic study gestated by Tod Swindell, to ultimately discover how three different people used the same identity
of Irene Craigmile Bolam, and how the one Gervais encountered not only aligned with Amelia but was seen nowhere identified
as Irene prior to 1945; yes, so much enabled Joe Gervais to always maintain his belief in how the Irene Craigmile Bolam who
he met and photographed in 1965... most assuredly had been the 'former' Amelia Earhart. In 2005 Joe Gervais passed away in
his sleep, still believing it.
Tod Swindell
Investigative Researcher/Writer/Film Producer
Tod Swindell
was born in Yonkers, New York in 1958. Raised in California and Pennsylvania, he resides in Los Angeles. A University of Arizona
graduate in Cinema Arts and a member of the Screen Directors Guild in Hollywood, he's also a past head of Research and Development
for Universal Pictures' 'Desperado Films.' He's been part of many film projects over the years serving on Producer levels
for several. On a more recent assignment he was an Associate Producer on the James Redford movie 'Spin,' a period plane flying
story starring Stanley Tucci and featuring vintage aircraft.
His interest in the
Earhart story grew during the period of 1991 to 1993 while he was representing the FOIA researched screenplay, "Earhart:
The Final Chapter" by WGA writer David O'Malley. Although the screenplay was covered well and received good reviews,
Swindell was not successful in selling it. Later, during the Summer of 1996 he conferred with a former U. S. intelligence
operative in Los Angeles. After observing how 'politically correct history' is often recorded with the help of the national
news media, he began to more seriously consider the investigative research of Randall Brink and Joe Gervais. (In 1994 W.W.
Norton had published Brink's best-selling Earhart investigative book, Lost Star.
See "The History of Earhart Mystery Research" link for more information.) After aligning with Brink and Gervais,
in 1997 Swindell gestated what would become a long term 'in-depth' forensic study and analysis of the Joe Gervais 'Amelia
became Irene' claim.
After accomplishing the difficult task of gathering the photographs needed to advance the study, Tod Swindell's effort
was credited for the breakthrough of having discovered the past 'multiple identity' issue of ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam.’
(See the "Press Notices, Testimonials" link.) The Associated Press also reported how his forensic analysis revealed
a haunting physical congruence displayed between the 1945-1982 identified Irene Craigmile and Amelia Earhart. Swindell simplified
it this way; "We're talking about true body evidence the American public has been persuaded to believe was not true body
evidence. Yet how does one solve the case of a missing person? Simple, find the person or find the body of the person. In
1965 Joe Gervais recognized Amelia's body. True, Amelia had changed her name to Irene, but said Irene's body used to belong
to Amelia Earhart." The forensic analysis continued, thoroughly examining the history of the original Irene Craigmile's
family, to include the prominent O'Crowley family and township named-for 'Rutherfords' of Newark, New Jersey. (See the original
Irene Craigmile's condensed biography in the lower portion of the 1982 New Jersey
Tribune link.) Ultimately the information gained by the study after being added to nearly four decades worth of accumulated
research, revealed how Amelia Earhart surely had continued to exist following her disappearance in 1937, as one of the post-1930s
identified Irene Craigmile’s ...just as Joe Gervais long professed she had.
USAF Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, (Ret.)
[1920-2007]
Investigative Researcher/Author
Rollin C. Reineck was born in 1920 and grew
up in Van Nuys, California. He attended the University of California at Santa Barbara before joining the Army Air Corp at
the age of twenty-one in early 1942. He aspired to become the Chief Navigator of the B29 fleet stationed on Saipan in 1944,
was an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and flew the last raids over Tokyo just prior to VJ Day. He was a career military
man who retired as a USAF Colonel. He lived in Hawaii from that point on. He read about the research of Joe Gervais in the
1970s, mostly by way of the book Amelia Earhart lives. Knowing what he did
about the military and its intelligence divisions during the war years, Reineck found the Gervais claim to strongly potential
the truth even though others, to include the Gervais-Irene herself fought against its acceptance. From the 1970s until he
died in 2007, Colonel Reineck was a long time supporter of the research of Joe Gervais.
By early 2004 Colonel Reineck's
book, Amelia Earhart Survived was available in stores. Published through The
Paragon Agency, it added much credence to the long held Irene-Amelia claim of Joe Gervais, while outright stating it as 'true.'
It was also the first book to convey the past singular identity shared by different Irene Craigmile Bolam individuals, crediting
and drawing elements from Tod Swindell's forensic analysis efforts while doing so.
