Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Amelia Earhart May Have Survived Crash-Landing

Tiki Tom

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,393
Location
Oahu, North Polynesia
Now wait a minute. A few years back, I thought we had compelling evidence that she and Mr Noonan died as castaways on a tiny atoll. It was claimed that just one more dive season was needed to confirm that a mysterious deep water image just off the atoll was the wreck of their plane. Has all that fallen through? Now this old chestnut resurfaces ...but apparently with a new old photograph. It may not be possible for me to watch the show on Sunday. Your reviews and comments would be appreciated. The Tiki wants to know!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...e-amelia-earhart-captured-japanese/451521001/
 

EmergencyIan

Practically Family
Messages
918
Location
New York, NY
Now wait a minute. A few years back, I thought we had compelling evidence that she and Mr Noonan died as castaways on a tiny atoll. It was claimed that just one more dive season was needed to confirm that a mysterious deep water image just off the atoll was the wreck of their plane. Has all that fallen through? Now this old chestnut resurfaces ...but apparently with a new old photograph. It may not be possible for me to watch the show on Sunday. Your reviews and comments would be appreciated. The Tiki wants to know!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...e-amelia-earhart-captured-japanese/451521001/

This made the national TV news here in the states yesterday. That's saying something with all of the political news that dominates these days. So, maybe there is something to this.

- Ian
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
History Channel this Sunday.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...rvived-crash-landing-never-seen-photo-n779591

It’ll be interesting to watch and see how they determine it was Amelia
based on the evidence they are presenting.
Amelia.png
 

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
History Channel this Sunday.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...rvived-crash-landing-never-seen-photo-n779591

It’ll be interesting to watch and see how they determine it was Amelia
based on the evidence they are presenting.
View attachment 78495
That's the photo that the experts are basing there 90%+ positive results on? I've seen clearer Bigfoot photos! Reminds me of the show, where Jesse James survived. The photo experts were sure it was him, but the DNA said a big fat no.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
That's the photo that the experts are basing there 90%+ positive results on? I've seen clearer Bigfoot photos! Reminds me of the show, where Jesse James survived. The photo experts were sure it was him, but the DNA said a big fat no.

The theory that Amelia was captured by the Japanese began in the 70s on "In Search Of"
between episodes of the Loch Ness monster and bigfoot.

bigfoot.jpg
 
Last edited:
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
That's the photo that the experts are basing there 90%+ positive results on? I've seen clearer Bigfoot photos! Reminds me of the show, where Jesse James survived. The photo experts were sure it was him, but the DNA said a big fat no.

Somewhere along the way - after the History Channel had shown every single inch of film footage on WWII that it could find (and re-packaged same footage into many iterations of similar documentaries) - History Channel lost its way and shifted into "reality" shows and more sensational stuff.

My guess, it had mined as much as it could out of the thoughtful history fan and simply drove for growth at the cost of its reputation. I used to watch that channel nearly every day (and always checked what was coming up on it) and now haven't even looked at it once in weeks, maybe, months.
 

Tiki Tom

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,393
Location
Oahu, North Polynesia
Thanks for posting the photo. That really lays it out. I gotta say that it is indeed "intriguing". It does look like a woman to me, and somewhere I read that Noonan's receding hairline is pretty distinctive. That said, there is still plenty of room for dueling photo interpretations.

If I were investigating it and had a big budget, I'd double-down on the Japanese side of things and try to get unprecedented access to Japan's war records with a good team of translators. The hope would be to find some smoking gun bit of documentation confirming that they were taken prisoner. I love a good mystery.
 

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
Somewhere along the way - after the History Channel had shown every single inch of film footage on WWII that it could find (and re-packaged same footage into many iterations of similar documentaries) - History Channel lost its way and shifted into "reality" shows and more sensational stuff.

My guess, it had mined as much as it could out of the thoughtful history fan and simply drove for growth at the cost of its reputation. I used to watch that channel nearly every day (and always checked what was coming up on it) and now haven't even looked at it once in weeks, maybe, months.
Somewhere lost in this forum is a thread I started on the decline of the History Channel!
 

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
The theory that Amelia was captured by the Japanese began in the 70s on "In Search Of"
between episodes of the Loch Ness monster and bigfoot.

View attachment 78515
History Channel this Sunday.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...rvived-crash-landing-never-seen-photo-n779591

It’ll be interesting to watch and see how they determine it was Amelia
based on the evidence they are presenting.
View attachment 78495
As good as you are with photo shopping, I am surprised you didn't do a Where's Waldo with that photo!
 

HanauMan

Practically Family
Messages
809
Location
Inverness, Scotland
Well, all I have to say is that many young Japanese women sported a short hairstyle in the thirties. And the figure that is supposed to be Noonan looks more like a Japanese man to me as he is about the same height as the other men and has thicker hair than in the photos I've seen of Fred Noonan.

I believe that they died after running out of gas, BUT I suspect that the Japanese did find the plane. Whatever, it makes a great mystery story even after all these years.
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
Somewhere lost in this forum is a thread I started on the decline of the History Channel!

I've heard a few considerably less plausible theories as to what became of Amelia Earhart.

Whatever there might be to this theory isn't made any more credible by its being on the History Channel. Still, I'm willing to listen to the case and to the criticisms of it from those who know these matters far better than I ever will.

I fear that the "experts" will have something other than scientific objectivity at stake, and for that reason their conclusions ought be evaluated with that in mind.

I really hope I'm wrong about all of that. I hope we someday learn what happened to Earhart and Noonan, if for no other reason than it will likely make for a great (if tragic) story.
 
Messages
10,930
Location
My mother's basement
Amelia Earhart wouldn't remain such a compelling figure nearly 80 years after her (presumed) death if she weren't so attractive and if her bearing and manner didn't so strongly suggest a certain sapphic quality.

There's a letter she penned to George Putnam, her husband-to-be, making plain her desire to have a retreat of her own, where she would presumably be free to entertain guests in a manner not consistent with what was thought appropriate for married couples of that era. Or maybe it was just a place where she might enjoy a little solitude. Wink, wink.

She was a show-woman, for sure. She came along when both aviation and motion pictures were novel. She had the looks, she had the "presence," she had her finger on the pulse of her time.
 
Last edited:

Big J

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,961
Location
Japan
Hi Guys.

Yeah, it's an awesome *theory* and probably isn't true.
But there's a chance it could be.
Looking at the photo, the guy does seem to have the hairline and the height. He's standing behind and to the right of the guy who superficially seems to be the same height, so perspective comes into play to equalize relative heights.
There's a tall guy back there with him, but some Japanese guys were (and are) above average height. Doesn't prove anything either way by itself.
That does look like a woman sitting there watching her 'plane' being 'recovered'.
I wouldn't say she was Japanese due to Japanese social constraints of 30's nationalism (Japan's hedonistic roaring twenties were well crushed by nationalism by the alleged time of the photo). A japanese woman with a short cut and a perm, in western clothes, outside of the home islands, but in Japanese occupied territory would be as unusual as the fact of it being Amelia IMHO. Japanese women of that particular era were shackled to the kitchen almost by law.

I find it entirely plausible that given the rising perception of a Japanese threat to US interests (Japanese officers penned a book called 'Why Japan must fight America' in the early 30's, and it was translated into English before 1937), and given the strong US political support for Chiang Kai-Shek, that interested US parties (government, military, or private) may have appealed to the pairs patriotism by offer to fund in part or in full Amelia's flight on the basis of putting some intelligence gathering equipment in her plane (which of course the Japanese would desire to recover) with the proviso that they would both be 'personna non grata' should they be captured (after all, the US hadn't declared war on Japan at this point).

Just like Mission Impossible.

Japanese records? Extremely unlikely. With the 2 week grace period between Japanese surrender and the arrival of US Navy in Tokyo Bay, US pilots reported flying over Tokyo every day and seeing massive columns of smoke as Japanese officials burned millions of documents connected to war-crimes.

With the outbreak of the Korean War, the US started its 'reverse course' on Japan, and was intent on playing down many distasteful aspects of wartime Japanese behavior in an effort to rehabilitate Japan's image to US citizens as a reliable ally against communism, a fact that certainly means that if Amelia died in Japanese custody, the US would seek to conceal unpopular news.

Just my 2 cents.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,096
Messages
3,074,051
Members
54,091
Latest member
toptvsspala
Top