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Note: Click on the photo
below to go directly to the Forensic Analysis page. All of the claims and stories on this page have been repeated in the press
over the years, never to achieve positively endorsed results. As well, none of them have ever been 'officially' endorsed as
worthwhile claims or exercises. More so, these stories and many more represent the ongoing media fodder that has kept the
so-called 'mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance' alive form many years.
| Amelia Earhart, age 26, before she became famous. |
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| "Beyond 37' has lifted the veil off the real historical record of Amelia Earhart." |
KMBC Kansas
City, by Lara Moritz (2009)
"All the evidence all put together, I feel like she did survive," Foudray added.
"I think she survived and came back to the United States." Foudray calls the investigative research of Gervais and
Swindell, "just the tip of the Iceberg." From a May 7, 2009 interview with Lou Foudray of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum conducted by Lara
Moritz of KMBC TV, Kansas City; and an earlier Topeka Kansas Capital-Journal interview with Journalist Jan Biles.
arts and entertainment 9News traffic reporter Amelia Earhart aims to trace namesake's round-the-world flight plan
 Amelia Earhart,
traffic reporter for KUSA 9News, shares a "common ancestry" with the famous aviatrix who vanished over the Pacific
in 1937. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post
Inside
a hangar at Independence Aviation at Centennial Airport, a gleaming Cirrus SR22
— that's $1 million worth of sexy, single-engine plane — awaits a pilot. Amelia Earhart, in boots and
leggings, claims the cockpit. Yes, it's her real name. The 9News reporter, who is studying to be a meteorologist,
went by Amy as a girl until she felt confident enough to wear the handle bestowed by her parents in honor of their distant
relative. She shares a "common ancestry" (she's never pursued a genealogical search) with the famous aviatrix
who vanished over the Pacific in 1937. When she talks about the instrument panel or the plane's BMW-designed interior,
or even the emergency parachute, the 28-year-old Earhart sounds like she's describing a lover. "I never knew
I could feel this way. When you hear the door click shut, nothing else matters." Recently, Earhart successfully
retraced a portion of the original Amelia's 1937 transcontinental flight, California to Florida. Re-creating the photo of
the original Amelia over the Golden Gate Bridge was the highpoint. (She posted a lengthy video on her blog. "As we
cruised over Treasure Island, interacting with the photo ship and cautiously making turns while hitting specific altitude
marks and speeds, I couldn't help but get chills knowing that I was flying in the same spot that Amelia flew 74 years ago,"
she wrote.) Her next trip will re-create the original Amelia's flight to Scotland, and continue on to Paris, completing
her 1932 attempt. The long-term goal is an around-the-world flight in the Cirrus, crossing the equator twice, making 65 stops.
Ideally, she would take three months off work in 2015 to make the trip. When she gets going, the native of Downey,
Calif., sounds like a cross between a motivational speaker and a zealot. Her blog preaches positivity and goal-setting.
She is disarmingly direct, unpretentious and, inevitably, down-to-earth. Earhart looks like a model, is unerringly upbeat
and seems to have the energy to take flight unassisted. "I wake up at 3 a.m. and work a split shift," she
says. She says she needs only six or seven hours of sleep. Her advice: "Just focus. Don't multitask: It dulls you
down." She has lived 29 places in her 28 years and has few possessions. The only constant is a ceramic unicorn
her father gave her. Earhart worked as a traffic reporter for 9News and KOA after getting a degree in English literature
from the University of Colorado in 2005, then hovered over Los Angeles for two years covering traffic, before returning
to 9News in 2010.
New, Never-Before-Seen Amelia Earhart Photos, Documents Unveiled
Treasure trove of artifacts deepens mystery surrounding famed aviator's 1937 flight, crash
Mike Duggan, a Southern California
man reveals an astonishing collection of never-before-seen photographs, including this one of Paul Mantz (left) and Amelia
Earhart (center).
In an exclusive report, NBCLA has discovered crtical documents and never-before-seen
photos that not only shed new light on the 74-year-old disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, but also perhaps deepen
the mystery surrounding her fate.
The items were shown to NBCLA about two weeks ago inside an airport hangar in
Upland, Calif. They include more than a dozen original photos of Earhart, including the negatives; a pair of woman's goggles
and a leather cap; plus, what could be considered the Holy Grail for historians: Earhart's "airworthiness certificate"
for the plane that she disappeared with in 1937.
The certificate has specific details about Earhart's plane and her flight plan
for the historic around-the-world flight in 1937. And until now, it was always assumed to have been with her when she vanished.
"An
airworthiness certificate is basically a birth certificate for a plane and pilots are not supposed to fly without one,"
said retired judge Mike Duggan, who now owns the items. "So, basically just scratch your head and wonder how did I
wind up with this?"
Duggan said he inherited the items from a friend who recently passed away. That friend was a mechanic for the now-defunct
TallMantz Aviation Company in Orange County.
"I
don't know anybody who has seen these things before," said Duggan. "My friend basically pulled them out of the
Dumpster when they shut down TallMantz Aviation more than 30 years ago."
Paul Mantz, who co-founded TallMantz
Aviation was Hollywood's most famous stunt pilot. He was also Earhart's technical advisor and co-pilot on her first around-the-world
flight in March 1937.
But that flight was canceled after Earhart had an accident on the departure from Luke Field in Hawaii. Duggan believes
that is perhaps when someone took the airworthiness certificate out of the plane.
"The expectation is that Mantz,
as her technical advisor, would have safeguarded the paper work for safekeeping so it wouldn't be lost in the dismantling
and shipping of her plane back to California for repairs," said Duggan.
"It's not surprising to me that
this document was not found in her plane," said Louise Foudray of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchison,
Kan. "We always knew that there was an original document in existence."
Earhart's fate remains one of aviation's
greatest unsolved mysteries. Experts over the years have offered different theories about what happened to her.
When
she made her second attempt to circumnavigate the globe in May 1937, it was without Mantz. Instead she took navigator Fred
Noonan. The official story is that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and crashed at sea while flying over islands in the
South Pacific. The U.S. government launched a massive search, but never found Earhart, Noonan or the plane. Earhart was
officially declared dead by a California court in early 1939.
Foudray believes the items will only help historians
in the quest to find out what happened to Earhart. (Note: See Lou Foudray's comments in the 2009 KMBC/Topeka Kansas
Capital-Journal articles at the top of the page.)
"We are just very happy to have anything
that will substantiate that there was something else going on other than what had just been reported and for public knowledge,"
said Foudray. "It's fascinating, it's complicated and we may never have an answer."
As for what will become of this treasure
trove of Earhart memorabilia, Duggan plans to donate the items to various museums, including the Amelia Earhart Birthplace
Museum in Kansas.
Cutout creations gain attention outside of Salinas Valley
9:00
PM, Jan. 6, 2012
Artist John Cerney of Salinas, is working on a cutout of aviator
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, the navigator on her famous 1937 flight. Written
by DAVE NORDSTRAND
The Salinas Valley's best-known artist has famed aviator Amelia Earhart
on his mind.That artist would be painter John Cerney,
Salinas High School graduate. Cerney's giant cutout depictions
of local people and products dot the valley floor and help endow the local landscape with much of its unique visual character. "But now I have some 40 cutouts out there in the county, and that's the problem,"
Cerney said. "There are too many of my pieces around. There's a point of over-exposure." Enter Earhart, who is thought to have died in 1937 as she attempted to become the first woman to fly around the
world. Her plane, which also carried navigator Fred Noonan, went down somewhere in the Central Pacific, although precisely
where remains a topic of speculation and research. The pair is thought to have run out of gas after misjudging their route.
Some researchers contend Earhart survived for at least a little while on a small, unpopulated island. Once a year, Cerney does a cutout for free, and Earhart is his choice for the next
free subject. He's creating the work in his Salinas studio.
Near the end of January, he'll head for Atchison, Kan., a town of 20,000 and the birthplace of Earhart. She was also the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the first
woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, among many achievements. Cerney, working through Atchison's chamber of commerce, has found a Kansas farmer whose home sits near a busy two-lane
country highway. The farmer is said to be eager to have Cerney's Earhart work in his front yard. Cerney will install his 35-by-10-foot vision of the pilot and her plane and Noonan so it's visible to passing motorists.
Earhart will be holding a map and Noonan a can of gas. "My
take on Amelia will be that she didn't go down in the ocean," Cerney said. "So she'll be parked with her plane
on a field off the highway."
Gallery To Auction Amelia Earhart Goggles,
Photos A Northern California gallery plans to auction
goggles it says were worn by famed aviator Amelia Earhart during an early plane crash. Reporter:
Associated Press Email Address:
news@kake.com
Saturday, September 10, 2011
A Northern California gallery plans to auction goggles it says were worn by famed
aviator Amelia Earhart during an early plane crash.
The auction in Oakland on Sunday will
also feature negatives and
photographs of Earhart, who disappeared while trying to circumnavigate the globe. Clars
Auction Gallery is running the auction and says 18 of the
photographs -- the bulk of the lot -- include shots of Earhart
at a
barbershop and making other preparations for the round-the-world
flight, as well as the plane taking off on
March 17, 1937. The gallery says the photos and goggles have been authenticated. The photographs are expected to fetch between $600
and $1000 each. The goggles are expected to bring in between $20,000 and $40,000.
Bones found on Nikumaroro Island
might be Amelia Earhart's?
By SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press – Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:47 am ET
Beyond
37' Note: What is the truth about Nikumaroro? According to the existing historical record, to include the long held opinions
of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan never went near to Nikumaroro,
FKA 'Gardner Island' of the Phoenix Islands group. Even a 1938 O-2 intelligence memo located after the 1980 Freedom Of Information
Act confirmed their in-flight decision to "turn north" away from their intended destination of Howland Island, with
their subsequent call-in signals fading until they were heard from no more. Nikumaroro on the other hand, is five hundred
miles 'south' of Howland. Why..., for almost twenty years now has a cottage industry pedelling a 'Gilligan's Island' version
of Earhart's fate been given any press attention at all? Especially where it concerns an island many people visited over the
years, one thoroughly flown over by U. S. planes at the time of Earhart's disappearance, and where a past attempt at colonization
had taken place? The USA Today quoted some opposing expert responses to the Nikumaroro claim, with one outright dismissing
it as a false hope "based on the gathering of other peoples old junk." (See cartoon below.) Again, according to
the more informed investigative researchers Amelia Earhart was never on Nikumaroro, although it does mark an innocent, if
not romantic diversion. Here's the opening of the recent Associated Press story about Tighar and Nikumaroro:
Bones found on Island might be Amelia Earhart's?
By SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press – Sat
Dec 18, 2010 12:47 am ET
"NORMAN, Okla. – Three bone fragments turned up on a deserted South Pacific island that lay along the
course Amelia Earhart was following when she vanished. Nearby were several tantalizing artifacts: some old makeup, some
glass bottles and shells that had been cut open.
[Beyond 37' Note: 'The course Amelia Earhart was following?' Not exactly: The last coordinates
Earhart radioed in described a "157/337 line of position" over the ocean near Howland Island, five hundred miles
north of Nikumororo."]
Now scientists at the University of Oklahoma hope to extract DNA from the tiny bone chips in tests that could prove
Earhart died as a castaway after failing in her 1937 quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.
"There's no guarantee," said Ric
Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery, a group of aviation enthusiasts in Delaware
that found the pieces of bone this year while on an expedition to Nikumaroro Island, about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii.
"You only have to say you have a bone
that may be human and may be linked to Earhart and people get excited. But it is true that, if they can get DNA, and if they
can match it to Amelia Earhart's DNA, that's pretty good."
It could be months before scientists know for sure — and it could turn
out the bones are from a turtle. The fragments were found near a hollowed-out turtle shell that might have been used to collect
rain water, but there were no other turtle parts nearby..." [Note: Talk about unnecessary hype.]
| Cartoon seen in the Detroit News March 18, 1992 |
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| Satire of TIGHAR expedition to Nikumororo; Elvis' guitar pick, Amelia's hairpin, Titanic, etc. |
TIGHAR Issued Several Major Press
Releases Since 1990, Basically Claiming It 'Solved The Mystery' Of Amelia Earhart. Of Course It Did No Such Thing. Following
The TIGHAR Story Below, Of The May 5, 2010 News Item Dave Jourdan And Nauticos (Supportive Of Elgen Long) Has Also Tried Twice
To Look For Earhart's Plane In Deep Water Northwest Of Howland Island. Needless To Say He Came Up Empty. Still, Jourdan Is
Currently Seeking Additional Funding To Again Look For What Many Amelia Earhart Researchers Believe Did Not End Up Under Water,
And May Not Even Exist Anymore; Amelia's Lockheed Electra 10E Airplane. As well, notice how the Nauticos article says
of Amelia; "who is believed to have crashed in the Pacific Ocean." Note: A recent years National Geographic Society
poll revealed how about half of the American public believed something else happened to Earhart and Noonan, not to mention
how government and military figureheads had been alluding to a different truth about Earhart's finality ever since she was
declared 'missing.'
Earhart's so-called 'disappearance' happened on
July 2, 1937 while she and Noonan were still safely airborn with fuel enough for as much as four more flying hours, or, about
six to seven hundred miles range wise. A later declassified U. S. O-2 Intelligence memo dated 11/1/38 from a Colonel H. H.
C. Richards of Australia explained, "She (Earhart) stated she was turning north and they continued to hear her at intervals,
her signals becoming fainter each time received." Of course the history books ended up describing Earhart's final words
to include her saying, "We are running north and south" as opposed to just 'turning north.' It's interesting to
realize here as well; how since the late 1970s Elgen Long and TIGHAR have consistently received national press attention with
their comparatively innocent offerings, while the 1960s deeper and more controversial investigative results were seemingly
forgotten, or purposefully discounted or ignored by the news media. (Note the following 'Preface.')
Preface about the stamp shown below: This 1987 Republic of
the Marshall Islands '50th Anniversary of Amelia Earhart's World Flight' commemorative stamp (one from a series of six) depicts
Earhart and Noonan's rescue and the recovery of Earhart's Electra off a shoal adjacent to Mili Atoll. The Sino-Japanese War
began just five days after Earhart was reported missing. It was a war the U. S. was strongly opposed to. In 2002 the United
Nations Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Alfred Cappelle described to Ron Staton of the Associated Press how it remained
"common knowledge" in his country, "Amelia Earhart definitely ended up in the Marshall Islands."
| On what became of Amelia's plane? |
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| It was hoisted onto a Japanese vessel as the rescued Earhart & Noonan observed. |
Above, one need only ask why Americans
are encouraged to ignore such legitimate 'Marshall Islands' information extant since the 1960s, and instead invest their hard
earned dollars into false plane hunts? Answer: The instilled credo "find the plane, solve the mystery" affords a
false sense of hope to the less informed, and keeps the mystery alive as preferred by U. S. historical dictum. There are current;y
no less than four groups trying to raise money for expeditions, and all of them are certain they know where Earhart's plane
will be found; from mountain top jungles to deep sea floor locations.
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Underseas explorer Dave Jourdan has lead two expeditions
in search of the plane of Amelia Earhart, who is believed to have crashed into the Pacific Ocean during a round-the-world
flight in 1937. Jourdan has completed a book about his search, The Deep Sea Quest for Amelia Earhart, and he’ll
be discussing his work at the Orlando Science Center on Saturday, May 8.
Dave Jourdan, author
of "The Deep Sea Quest for Amelia Earhart," will speak at the Orlando Science Center on May 8.
In a phone interview earlier this week, I asked
him if this were the sort of adventure where there would be signs that he was getting closer. “You get encouraged with
every square mile you cover. You’ve eliminated that one, so it’s got to be in another square mile that we haven’t
looked at yet,” Jourdan says. His
team has a proven method for searches. They found the sunken Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga, lost in World War II during the
Battle of Midway, and the missing Israeli submarine Dakar in the Mediterranean. “When something goes down in the water,
where it is is always a big mystery. Our approach has always been successful, but it’s a statistical approach,”
he says. “You calculate probablilites and you come up with an area. You’re pretty confident that what you’re
looking for is in that area, so you search that area and you find it. That has always worked for us, every time, we have never
failed.” The hold-up now is that
their search area is big and remote. Even today, it takes a week to sail from Hawaii to the area in question. “She was
in a very remote part of the world at a time when navigation was less precise, and due to many confounding factors, she got
lost. No one knew at the time, had any idea where she was except that she was close to Howland Island, where she was trying
to fly to.” How far away is it? “When we leave, we expect to be gone for six or seven weeks without seeing land.”
All that adds up to a hefty price tag for the search.
Jourdan says the third attempt could cost $1.5 million, and it’s not like there’s gold on board down there.
“It’s not a traditional treasure. It’s a historical
treasure,” he says. “The financing has to be from nonconventional sources.” Backers would have to support the belief that the wreckage could be brought
up and be put on exhibit. He feels confident that they’ve narrowed the location properly, that Earhart’s plane
would not have drifted away. He thinks it sank quickly. “Once you get below the surface of the ocean, the vast general rule is that there’s almost no current,”
he says. “The aircraft would sink almost to the bottom without straying very far.” Although Jourdan is focused on the Earhart case, his emphasis is on the
scientific potential that’s in the deep-blue sea. “There are discoveries to be made down there, I think, that are completely unable to anticipate. It’s
an unexplored frontier,” he says. “Every time you study anything in the ocean, you discover new species, new lifeforms,
new terrain. … Just being there is going to create opportunities.” At the science center, Jourdan will share his adventure following the 1 p.m. showing of
Magic of Flight in the Dr. Phillips CineDome. Start time will be at about 1:45 p.m. His talk (with slideshow) is
included in regular science-center admission. [Beyond 37's Note: Dave Jourdan and Nauticos, unfairly led to believe
something exists, where historically it would not likely exist.]
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Treasure Coast institute part of hush-hush search for Amelia Earhart's plane[Press release from SunSentinel.com] Posted 1/11/2010 By Tyler Treadway, TCPalm "FORT
PIERCE — Now it can be told: About 20 staffers from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute took part in a hush-hush
search for Amelia Earhart's plane in the depths of the Pacific Ocean during spring 2009. Now it can be admitted: They didn't find the wreckage of the Lockheed Electra 10E aircraft that
disappeared July 2, 1937, as Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan attempted an around-the-world flight...." (Above: Thus begins the story of another mislead....) Once again, as steadfastly predicted by the wary ever since Earhart plane searching began in the 1960s,
another Earhart plane hunt comes up empty...
Amelia Earhart's plane will never be found conventionally,
regardless of how high-tech an ocean floor search effort might be. If her plane still exists, most likely it's being privately
cared for on dry land somewhere. Again, news reports of plane hunts re-energize the Earhart mystery every time new plans are
unveiled to try and locate it. As well they quietly divert attention away from the most
prevalent smoking gun (Amelia Earhart's post-loss body evidence in the form of the Gervais-Irene.)
| Amelia Earhart, age twenty-six. |
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| 1923 into a mirror self-photo portrait. She would become famous in 1928. |
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| Below: |
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| Amelia, 1928, after the Friendship flight. |
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| Below: |
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| Amelia Earhart, 1933 |
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| Classic Amelia photo portrait. |
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| Orville Wright & Amelia Earhart |
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'Amelia'
Director: Mira Nair
Rating: 4 out of 10 [Press Release by Fox 61
Chattanooga] Review of 'Amelia' posted 2/12/2010
Something
is wrong with this picture: Amelia, a movie directed by Mira Nair, is devoid of the color, spice, and passion that
are trademarks of a Nair film. I'm not sure what happened, but this biopic of famed female Depression-era aviator Amelia Earhart,
who disappeared over the ocean in her attempt at an around-the-world flight, suffers
from symptoms of stiff, lifeless movie-making. The script/dialogue is fairly terrible, with stars Hilary
Swank, Richard Gere, and Ewan McGregor all sounding like they're reading out of textbooks. Swank, who plays Earhart, and Gere,
who plays her promoter/husband George Putman, have pretty much no chemistry. And the story moves along from one event to the
next without much in the way of drama, suspense, or just general interest. Its theme about a woman who
has control over her own destiny is played straight and flat. Earhart is given a voiceover to express how much she loves flying,
and there are a few dreamy flying sequences, but otherwise the movie itself feels like a tomb, lending itself to a slow, quiet
pace that's possibly meant to be reflective but is instead dirgelike. It's a shame -- Swank -- is almost a dead ringer for
Earhart (although she plays her with a forced accent) so it feels a bit like a lost opportunity. Maybe a future movie about
Amelia will get it right -- the fascinating aviator deserves a far better movie treatment than this, and we get a hint of
the potential of that better movie from none other than black-and-white clips of the real Amelia Earhart at the end of the
film. That minute or two reveals more about her spirit than the whole rest of Amelia.
[End Article] Note: For a more in depth review and the full history
of the production see the Irene-Amelia.com link titled, "About The 2009 Hilary Swank Amelia Earhart Movie."]
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Once again a news item release about TIGHAR; viewed
as a mere 'media distraction' by serious truth seekers: "Items hint at Earhart’s final struggle" (Beyond 37's Comments:
Really? They do?) "Evidence backs view that pilot,
navigator died as castaways" (Beyond 37': It does? They
did?) | Aviator
Amelia Earhart is seen in this photo exiting her aircraft at Derry, Ireland, after her solo transatlantic flight in 1932. | FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images | |
By Rossella Lorenzi  updated 8:57 a.m. PT, Thurs., June 3, 2010
Tantalizing
new clues are surfacing in the Amelia Earhart mystery, according to researchers scouring a remote South Pacific island believed
to be the final resting place of the legendary aviatrix. Three pieces of a pocket knife and fragments of what might be a broken cosmetic
glass jar are adding new evidence that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed and eventually died as castaways on Nikumaroro,
an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati. The island was some 300 miles southeast of
their target destination, Howland Island... Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft
Recovery (TIGHAR), told Discovery News in an email interview from Nikumaroro... [Beyond 37's comment: Gillespie asserts 'touch DNA' might
be retrievable from the described items. Scientists see such a thing as 'an incredible long shot.' Yet if DNA were to be found,
it would not have come from Earhart or Noonan anyway. See the following explanation.] [Note: Keep an open mind. The above news article continues on, where TIGHAR's is a story rom the past, repeated
in the press since the early 1990s. Reality may share however, according to further Earhart scholars, TIGHAR has never produced
authenticated evidence to support Nikumororo as the place where Earhart and Noonan ended up. Conflicting experts describe
how the 'debris' items found on Nikumororo by TIGHAR were likely from "different boats known to have visited the
island over the years," and "at least one past attempt at habitation." Not to mention, Navy planes flew over
the island just days after Amelia turned up missing and saw no sign of she or her plane. Notice as well, how of the major
broadcast networks only ABC & NBC ever provide newsbites on Earhart in this direction. Several years ago Robert Krulwich
of ABC actually went to Nikumororo only to leave 'unconvinced' TIGHAR was on the right track. The last time CBS did a report
on what became of Amelia was Connie Chung's in the mid-1990s. CBS described (as it has ever since the 1960s, when CBS Radio
Journalist Fred Goerner investigated the Earhart disappearance matter) how Earhart and Noonan's flight likely ended in the
Marshall Islands, except what became of the flying duo after they did has never been 'officially' authenticated by anyone.
(Many people believe they both survived for either short or long periods of time after they were reported 'missing,' while
such a thing was hushed for reasons withheld from the public.) Richard Gillespie's TIGHAR, like Elgen Long's & Dave Jourdan's
'Nauticos' (see next story down) provide safe news diversions to convey to a less informed public. The reason the press steers
well clear of the Marshall Islands forensic argument, has to do with its basic acceptance of the United States and Japan never
wishing to again discuss something that was 'put to bed' so long ago, adjacent to the WWII era.]
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