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Amelia Earhart, the most famous female pilot in history and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. But when she attempted to circumnavigate the Earth, she vanished in 1937. No wreckage, no body, no answers. Just 80 plus years of rumors, distress calls, bones on a deserted island, sonar blips that look like planes, and even theories of Japanese prisons and Soviet spy missions. Was she lost at sea? Eaten by crabs, or captured and silenced by world powers? This is a story of Amelia Earhart, and we get to the bottom of what happened to her on that final flight. So sit back, relax, and welcome to history. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use indeed sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply on October 17th. I'm an angel. See the wings. Don't miss the new comedy Good Fortune, starring Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari and Keanu reeves. Critics rave. Eat 7 cent, me have a budget. Guardian angel, kinda. You were very unhelpful. Good Fortune, directed by Aziz Ansari. Rated. What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you so much for joining me in this beautiful tent where every single week, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all history. From all time, forever. That's right. Crazy things that have happened, crazy people that lived them, and we get to the bottom of everything. This is my place where I try to figure out everything that's ever happened, and stuff keeps on happening. So I'm already behind, but as always, I can't do the show alone. It requires a. A strapping staff of just handsome, tall, jacked, addicted Greek men. Right, Christos? Addicted. All right, all right, all right, all right. Also, not only did Trump call for the release of the Amelia Earhart files, he wanted the tipitous files out as well. So tipitous tip it is, Dick. Christos. Come on, dude. Come on, dude. That's why. That's why I keep telling you not to pipe up, because I got to slam you down with one of these deez nuts jokes. Anyway, guys, I'm sorry for the detour. Let's get into it. All right, if you don't know, Donald Trump has just called for release of the files that everybody wants to know about. And that's Amelia Earhart. Is it bad that I was the only one that was, like, a little excited? He was like, we're releasing the files. And I was like, oh, Epstein. He was like, amelia Earhart. I was like, that's pretty cool. You know, like, I. I love this Amelia Earhart story. And by love, I mean it's extremely tragic. And shout out to her family, I'm sorry for everything that ever happened. But it was one of the very first things I remember seeing on, like, the Discovery Channel as a kid being like, oh, what happened? Bermuda Triangle, aliens, Who knows? I remember being a little kid watching Discovery Channel, just being so excited when Amelia Earhart came on. And she is one of the most infamous unsolved mysteries of all time. And if you don't know, we're gonna go through the whole history, we're gonna get to the bottom of all the different theories and what likely happened to her and her plane. So, I mean, over the years, despite all the different searches and, you know, everything that they could have done, there has been no trace of her aircraft ever found. I actually just saw a video, like, an hour ago that says that they might have found something. So, you know, let's keep on the look. But no wreckage, no body, nothing. But what makes the story so captivating is that over 80 years later, there's still new evidence. Like, there's still new things that just show up that then people are like, oh, this must be it. So, like, they find bones on a remote island, they find distress calls picked up by civilians, sonar images of possible wreckage, and then declassified military documents that suggest that the official story might not be the entire truth. And with all this evidence, why haven't we figured it out? What's going on? And why is the President so interested in releasing these files? Let's get into all of it, but first, let's find out about Amelia Mary Earhart. She was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. Her childhood was pretty unconventional for the time. Her parents encouraged her and her sister to explore and take risks. So she would go out, climb trees, hunt rats with a rifle, you know, collect insects. Just typical tomboy, you know, which also, I don't know if you know this. There is a theory that Amelia Earhart was lesbian, which, I don't know. I mean, talking to any of my gay friends, they're all like, yeah, she was obviously lesbian. I'm just saying there's a few things in here, like, off rip that you're like, I Mean, yeah, she's hunting rats with a rifle and collecting bugs. That's kind of queer coded. Just throw it in. Allegedly. Please. Allegedly. Allegedly. No disrespect, okay? But now there's anything wrong with it. You know what I mean? Dude, she's a queer icon. She's also a piece in the night at the museum. Oh, that is a good ass. Oh, wait, who plays her? Look it up later anyway? Adams. Yes. I knew you would know. Dude, I told you this guy was an addict. Dude. An addict to them cheeks. Anyway, so she's doing all this stuff, and this is not normal for girls in the 1900s. But Amelia's family didn't really care. So when she's 10 years old, she sees her first airplane at a state fair in Iowa. Now keep in mind this. The plane was just invented. Like, she's just seen it for the first time. Like, can you look up? When like the Wright brothers first did their. It was like early 1900s. Like, she's just seeing a plane, like off the, off the press. Like, I think she's getting the first look. And what's interesting is that her reaction at first was not what you would expect. She sees the airplane and she's kind of just like, all right, whatever. Like, according to, according to reports, she thought it looked like a thing of rusty wire and wood, and she didn't really pay much attention to it. Little did she know that's the exact thing that would make her famous. When was the first flight? 1903. 1903, bro, she's born in 1897, dude, like legit. She's 10. She sees the plants. Three years old. And she's completely right in her assessment. She's like, yeah, the scene is just wooden wires, which is really what it is. So World War I breaks out. Amelia is working as a nurse's aide in Toronto, caring for wounded soldiers. And it was there, watching military pilots train at a nearby airfield, that she first became interested in aviation. After the war ends, she enrolled as a pre med student at Columbia University. But then she dropped out after one year. And then in 1920, her parents convinced her to come visit them in California. And that changed everything. So December 28, 1920, Amelia attended an air show in Long beach with her dad. And there was a pilot named Frank Hawks took her up for a 10 minute flight. I mean, think about that. That's crazy. Back in the day, you'd be like, hey, you want to go for a spin? So she just did. She later wrote, as soon as we left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly. Now, there's a problem here, and the problem is that flying lessons cost $1,000 at the time. That's like $15,000 in today's money. So Amelia worked a bunch of jobs. She was a photographer, a truck driver, a stenographer, and she just saved every penny she got. She even cut her hair short so she would look like other female pilots. And she bought a leather jacket she slept in for three nights straight before wearing it out so it looked like it was worn in and kind of, like, experienced. So finally, after saving enough money, January 1921, she began taking lessons from Netta Snook, one of the first women to ever run her own aviation business. Six months later, Amelia bought her first airplane. Yeah, she buys an airplane, a bright yellow kenner airstrip biplane that she named the Canary, which just goes to show the importance of representation, right? Clock it. You need women in aviation, okay? Because without Netta Snook, you would never have. You never have Amelia Earhart. Anyway, she buys the Canary, and this puts her on the road to fame, because October of 1922, she flew the canary to 14,000ft, setting a woman's altitude record at the age of 25. I mean, this girl's a beast. So for the next few years, she starts to struggle financially. She ended up having to sell the Canary. The Canary. To pay bills. And then started to work a bunch of odd jobs while still flying whenever she could afford to rent a plane and just get, you know, cockpit time. But in April 1928, everything changes with those little things. Phone call. A man named George Putnam calls and asked if she would be interested in becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. But there was a catch. She wouldn't be piloting the plane. She would be a passenger. The actual pilots would be Wilmer Stoltz and Louis Gordon. Now, despite this catch, Amelia agreed. Anyway. I mean, she loves to fly. So, you know, who gives a. Let's just give it a. Give it a spin. And obviously need the dudes to do it. It is kind of weird, like, in hindsight, being like, dude, why can't women fly? Like, it's like a cockpit is not like you got to carry a guy downstairs. It's just like, why are people skittish about it now? Well, now I feel like we have good reason, you know? I mean, they have tick tock and they're like, their nails are long. But back in the day, I feel like it was just like, girls back in the day were more like dudes. Anyway, despite all this, she agrees. And on June 17, 1928, they take off from Newfoundland in a Fokker F7, and it's called the Friendship. Twenty hours and 40 minutes later, they land in Wales, and Amelia Earhart becomes an international celebrity overnight, even though she didn't fly the plane. But that doesn't matter. She later told reporters that she did so little on the flight that she was essentially baggage like a sack of potatoes. I mean, kind of a bummer that she's famous for flying, but, like, that flight wasn't even her flight. But regardless, we'll get to the crazy stuff she does later. What's up, people? Let's take a break really quick because I want to talk to the fellas. Let me ask you something. Are you stuck? Do you feel like you're struggling with work or relationships or maybe your marriage or just feeling like you're not like the dude you want to be? You ever just thinking to yourself, like, man, I should be farther along right now? I just get caught in these cycles where I just kind of lose self control. Well, here's the thing that nobody likes to admit. It is possible that porn might be part of the problem. Yes, I know I said the P word. Now look, I don't want to be overly moralistic here, okay? But if you're someone that struggles with pornography and you know, research has shown that regular porn users actually leaves men feeling more anxious and less connected and ironically, less satisfied. And then it creates a cycle that then you gotta be a little secretive about and you tell yourself like, I'll quit. And then you come back to the same cycle and now you're in a trap. Well, that's where Relay comes in. Relay is a therapist backed app with actual clinicians designed to help men quit pornography and actually feel better and get control of their lives. And the difference with Relay is that you're not doing it alone. With Relay, you basically join a small group of guys that are kind of on the same road. They're sharing accountability and encouragement and actual tools to help when triggers hit and you're feeling, you know, anxious or alone. Relay helps you feel a little more connected and you can stay totally anonymous. But for the first time, you're not going to be in this battle alone. I mean, think of it like a gym membership, but with your brain and for your habits and for the future of your relationship, maybe. Right? Thousands of men and their families are already seeing some change because the men, their lives are a little bit less stuck. So if you're feeling stuck Check out relay. Don't wait another month to be the man that you want to be today. And you can break the cycle with relay. So go ahead and use the code gagon G n for a seven day free trial. If you feel like this thing has just got a grip on you that you're not able to to let go, that is join relay J o I n rel r e l a y app a p p camp and use the code gagnon for a seven day free trial. Don't put it off. Be the man you're supposed to be today. Today. Now let's get back to the show and Doug. Here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state. But that is the thing that bugged her, right? She had gotten famous for a flight that she didn't even do. So she says, you know what? I'm going to fly across the Atlantic myself. Alone. Four years later, 1932, Amelia took off from Newfoundland in a single engine Lockheed Vega 5B. And her goal was to fly to Paris, retracing Charles Lindbergh's famous 1927 route. Now, the flight was a nightmare from the start. First off, the altimeter failed, which is the thing that basically reads your altitude. And so she had no idea how high she was or how low she was. Let me also just make this clear. Flying across the Atlantic at the time is extremely dangerous. Like, just to put it in perspective, like, Charles Lindbergh makes this famous flight where he goes from, you know, North America all the way to Paris, and that's 1927. Now she's here just five years later doing the same thing alone. Okay? So just, I don't want this to seem like, oh, yeah, this is just like when you get on A Delta flight. It is a completely different world. And her flight is a nightmare. Flames are shooting out of a crack in the engine. Ice is forming on the wings. Like, the plane is insanely heavy. At one point, she went into a spin and nearly crashed into the ocean. Her plan to reach Paris is now impossible. And now she was just like, I need to reach land. So after 14 hours and 56 minutes in the air, she performed an emergency landing in a pasture in Northern Ireland where a farm worker approached the plane. And Amelia says, where am I? When he told her that she was in Ireland, she had finally realized that she finished what she set out to do. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and only the second person to ever do do it. I mean, that's fire. How sick is that, dude? Like, people say, like, dude, first woman, she's the second person ever to do it. That's ballsy. As. And then, not to mention she was tail spinning, was like, like, that's sick as hell, dude. Shout out to her. Like, again, these planes are not, are not actual planes. Like, first off, imagine having to be awake for an entire flight to Paris. And then on top of that, you're in a slow plane. Like, that might be like an eight hour flight. Six and a half, seven, depending on the winds. This is 14 hours, 15. Basically, it's rough sledding and she does it. Then when she arrives home, the awards start flooding and she received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Cross of Knights of the Legion of Honor from France, and a gold medal from the National Geographic Society. She was meeting with presidents, she's meeting kings. She gave lectures across the country. And get this, George Putnam. Remember the guy that gave her the call in 1928 and was like, hey, let's, you know, I'll fly you over there. He becomes her husband in 1932, just a year before the flight. Just like a little fun fact. There's also an interesting thing with this. This is why other people think that she is, she was a lesbian. Amelia wrote George a letter before getting married expressing that she wanted to have an open relationship, which at the time was insane for anyone to do, much less a woman to suggest it to her husband. Which is again, is just. A lot of people have said that this is like very quee coded, you know what I mean? Like, why would a woman that's happily married or like, interested in men and, you know, not be interested in monogamy? It's like, okay, well, she wanted to do something on the side, or she was just an alpha, and was just trying to get it from every which direction. Literally. In the letter she writes on our life together, I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you. Similarly, basically, like, yo. All that old of, like, you only banging me, me only banging you. We're not doing that. If we can be honest. I think the difficulties which arise may be best avoided should you or I become interested deeply in anyone else. Gay. She says a bunch of other stuff. Please don't interfere with others work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection, I may have to keep someplace where I can go be myself now and then. And I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage. I mean, kind of wild, ballsy for a girl. I mean, Loki, huge fan of Amelia Hart. Like, at this point, I'm like, she's like the sickest. Like, that's. She's a beast. Anyway. Over the next few years, she continued pushing the boundaries. But the sad reality is that flying wasn't cheap. And soon after making all these achievements, she found herself once again short on cash. So in order to ensure that she didn't just, you know, crash and burn, she and her husband turned to fashion. 1933, she starts a clothing line in her suite in New York's Hotel Seymour. Her workspace only included, like, a sewing machine and mannequin, and she only had one seamstress to help her. But she brought her fashion line to life. The clothing line included 25 outfits, dresses, skirts, pants, jackets, all that. Each item had a tag with her signature and black writing overlapping a plane darting from left to right. Like the OG Influencer. She's like, yo, we got merch. At the time, most women were wearing dresses or, like, clothing that was, like one full piece. But she marketed her items as separates to women, which allowed for women to wear different tops, bottoms to accommodate a bunch of different, you know, figures and styles, all that stuff. And the line wasn't majorly popular, but it sold in a few department stores like Macy's, although it's still, you know, it reinforced her images, like, I'm modern, independent woman. And then 1935, she's back to flying. She gets some cash and she says, you know what? I'm going to be the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California, which is a longer and more dangerous route than the Atlantic. There were no ships or islands along the way. To be, like, emergency landing. Spots. It was 2,400 miles away, and she navigated using only a compass and the stars. And this was an 18 hour flight. Now, soon after, Purdue University gave her a job as an advisor in aeronautics. And with the help of Purdue President Edward Elliot and a benefactor named David Ross, the university set up a research foundation fund for aeronautics, which the university then used to purchase Amelia a new plane for research. This plane was a Lockheed Electra 10e. And Earhart called it a flying laboratory because the plane was, you know, basically it was used for research, not just breaking records. But Amelia had one goal left, and it was the most ambitious one she ever thought of. She wanted to fly around the world at the equator, 29,000 miles, the longest possible route on planet Earth. Several pilots had flown around the world before, but nobody had attempted it at the equator because the distance is just too far. So Amelia spent months planning the circumnavigation. She knew she needed a navigator with extensive experience in celestial navigation and radio. So she chose Fred Noonan, a former Pan Am navigator who had helped map many of the early Pacific routes. Noonan was widely considered one of the best celestial navigators in the entire world, but he also had a little bit of a reputation for, you know, hitting the bottle sometimes, you know what I'm saying? So not ideal for a navigator. Some guys like, yeah, go over this way, and so people are concerned. But either way, on March 17, 1937, they took off from Oakland with additional crew members, Harry Manning and a tech advisor, Paul Mance. But during a takeoff while they were in Hawaii, the plane ground looped on the Runway, which is basically when, like, one of the wings rises and it causes the other to hit the ground. And this caused significant damage to the aircraft and had to be shipped back to California to get repaired. So her attempt had to be postponed. After the repairs, Amelia decided to reverse the route and fly east to west. But the flights were about to be way more dangerous. The weather patterns had shifted and they'd be hitting the Pacific crossing during monsoon season. And their other crew members, Manning and Mance, had dropped out, leaving just Amelia and fred Noonan. On June 1, 1937, Amelia and Fred took off from Miami heading east. And they dealt with monsoon rains, mechanical issues, dysentery, and media at every single stop. And she got shockingly far. So she leaves Miami, she makes it to the Caribbean and South America. She goes through Puerto Rico, then Venezuela, Brazil. Again, when I say she crosses the equator, you have to stop. When the planes are this small, you got to stop at a bunch of different spots along the way. So she makes it all the way through there. She crosses the Atlantic, goes to Africa, lands in Senegal, goes to India, she goes across the continent and then across the Arabian peninsula to Karachi, and then she stops in Calcutta, goes to Bangkok, Singapore, down to Indonesia, and then she makes it to New guinea, the last major stop, she had flown 22,000 miles. Now they only had 7,000 miles to go. They're so close. But this final leg was the most challenging. A 2,556 mile flight over open oceans to Howland Island, A tiny little place in the middle of the Pacific that measured just 1.66 miles long and half a mile wide. Now, finding how an island would require perfect navigation and radio communication. So the U. S. Coast guard stationed their ship, the Itasca, near the island to provide radio navigation assistance and weather reports. They also sent the ship Ontario to serve as a midway checkpoint. And on July 1st, Amelia and Fred had one last day to rest and prepare. The Electra was given a final maintenance check. The flight was going to be so long that they had to bring extra fuel, which also meant that they needed to reduce weight. They left behind their parachutes, emergency survival equipment, and they had already removed the long range radio equipment earlier in the flight to save weight getting them to New Guinea. So all they had was short and medium range communication capabilities. The next day, July 2, Amelia and Fred took off from New guinea at 10am the weather forecast looked pretty reasonable, though there were reports of scattered clouds and potential overcast conditions near the island. But the flight was expected to take 18 hours. Now, for the first several hours, everything seemed fine. The Ontario, one of the ships, was positioned about 1900 miles from New guinea, roughly halfway to Howland island. It was supposed to be basically like a checkpoint and send up some smoke signals. But there was a problem. The Ontario didn't have direction finding equipment and their radio wasn't tuned to the right frequency, so they never actually made contact with Amelia and Fred, meaning that they had to endure a straight 18 hour flight. Again, it's difficult to really overstate how challenging this is. You don't have modern gps, you just have the stars, your compass and short, you know, to medium length radios that are not able to pick up anything except for things basically right on the water. So the Itzaka, one of the other ships, was positioned just offshore from Howland island, ready to help guide them in. The radio operators aboard the ship began their scheduled transmissions, sending weather reports and navigation signals, but they were having trouble receiving Clear transmissions from Amelia's plane because they were on some different frequencies. Essentially the people on the ship couldn't hear Amelia and they couldn't hear him. And at 2:45am The Itzaka received their first message from Amelia. Cloudy and overcast. And over the next several hours, the Atsaka received several more transmissions from Amelia, but they were sporadic and increasingly concerned. At 6:14am, Amelia put through this message. Want bearing on 3105 kilocycles an hour. Will whistle in microphone 6:45am Please take bearing on us and report in half an hour. I will make noise in microphone about 100 miles out. And she's basically saying to send her a signal when she gets close so she knows where to go. Then at 7:42am she sends out one of her last transmissions. We must be on you, but cannot see you. Gas is running low, but been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000ft. An hour later, at 8:43, the last transmission was received. We are running north and south. This final message was the strongest signal the Itzaka had received, indicating the plane was very close. But Amelia's voice sounded frantic. And then after that, nothing. Radio operators on the Itaka continued broadcasting and listening, but they never heard from the Electra again. The moment it became clear that Amelia and Fred were missing, the US Navy and Coast Guard launched the largest air and sea surge in history. Up to that point, the search area covered 250,000 square miles of ocean. And for 16 days, ships and aircrafts searched everywhere. But they found nothing. No wreckage, no oil slicks, a life raft, bodies. And on July 19, 1937, the official search was called off. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were declared lost at sea. But that wasn't the end of the story. In the days and weeks following the disappearance, something strange happened. Over 100 radio signals were picked up by civilians across the Pacific that claimed to be from amelia's plane. Between July 2 and July 10, people from Texas to California, even Australia, reported that they picked up on distress calls on their home radios. Some were obviously hoaxes, but others were compelling enough that the US Navy actually investigated them. One was a 15 year old girl in St. Petersburg, Florida named Betty Clank. And she reported hearing a woman's voice saying, this is Amelia Earhart. Please help me. Betty immediately got her notebook and started writing down the messages. And the signal faded in and out, sometimes stopping altogether for several minutes and at other times it was distorted. But Betty tried her best to get down at least some of what she had said. If she wasn't sure about a word, she would just, you know, write down what it sounded like to her. And, you know, the voice said that they were on land and that Fred was injured and that water was coming in. When Betty's father got home from work, she excitedly got him to come over and listen and even claimed to have heard the calls. Later that evening, Betty's father reported to the local Coast Guard, but he was told that the government had ships in the area and everything was under control. Three different people on the island of Nauru, which is relatively close to Howland, reported hearing signals that matched the Electra's frequency. The signals came in during low tide, suggesting that the plane might be on, like, a reef somewhere, with the radio only working when the rising waters didn't flood the electrical systems. Despite the possible evidence of her being out there, the official position was that these were all hoaxes or misidentifications. The Navy's explanation was that the plane had crashed at sea, it sank quickly, and therefore it couldn't have transmitted any signals afterward. Now, I just want to note on the Betty clank story, the 15 year old girl in St. Petersburg that heard it. At the time, not a lot of people took her seriously because she was in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Amelia had vanished over the Pacific. But some people suggested that maybe there's a thing as skipping frequencies where basically radio frequencies can go out of the atmosphere and they can actually go longer distances, but with no accuracy. So some people suggest that it's possible, but it's extremely rare and very unlikely. Other people suggest that, you know, as many people knew about this, you know, infamous flight, that by coincidence they had been sending out radio signals saying that they were Amelia Earhart. Other people in more recent times actually investigated her notes, and they saw that some of the frequencies that she had written down were so specific that they likely weren't just invented by a teenage girl that was, you know, trying to create a hoax, which leads a lot of people to believe that maybe she wasn't actually lying. Regardless, there's no actual conclusion to her report. But the official conclusion came on January 5, 1939. After 18 months of being missing, Amelia Earhart was officially declared dead. The official conclusion was that the plane crashed in the Pacific, they ran out of fuel, they sank. And the theory makes a lot of sense, right? They were flying over this massive ocean, searching for a tiny little island. They had limited fuel and radio problems, navigation errors, weather issues, miscommunications that could have easily sent them off course, and, you know, they were now searching for this island, and they would have to descend into the ocean where the heavy Lockheed Electro would have just sank down to the bottom. But this explanation does leave a lot of questions that are kind of unanswered. Why were they receiving such strong radio signals at the end if they were running out of fuel? Why did civilians continue picking up distress calls for many days afterwards? And why, with all the search effort and advanced technology over the decades, has nobody actually found any definitive wreckage, even fragments? Well, this is where the theories abound. The most famous and research alternative explanation is the Nikomamoro castaway theory. Now, Gardiner island, now called Nikomomoro, is a small, uninhabited coral atoll about 350 miles southeast of Howland Island. The theory suggests that Amelia and Fred, unable to find Howland, headed south and landed on Nikomomoro's flat reef during a low tide. Now, a group known as tcar, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has led numerous expeditions to the island since 1989, and they've actually found some strange evidence. They found aircraft aluminum fragments that matched the Electra's construction, a piece of plexiglass that matches the plane's windows, and even a jar of freckle cream similar to the one that Amelia would have used. Now, in 1940, just three years after Amelia disappeared, a British colonial officer found human bones on the island. But the bones were examined briefly and dismissed as belonging to some unknown male. However, in 1998, researchers reanalyzed the original bone measurements using modern forensic techniques, and the results suggested that the bones were more consistent with a woman of European descent who was around Amelia's height and build. But there's also an issue with this. This discovery. If a body decomposes down to bones, you should have a somewhat large pile of bones, but there were barely any around. But what was around was coconut crabs. Now, coconut crabs are the world's largest land crab, some weighing over, like, nine pounds. And the claws were so strong that they can actually crack coconuts open, hence the name. Now, the Nikomomoro has a large population of them. And this theory suggests that if Emilia or Fred died on Nikoma Moro as castaways, the crabs would have gone quickly and consumed all the remains, probably dragged bones into, you know, the nearby jungle off to the sea, and basically, you know, taken away all the remains that would have actually been there. Now, this could explain why researchers found only partial remains and why no complete skeleton has ever been discovered. Then, in the 2000s, TCAR researchers actually staged experiments on Nikoma Moro by placing pig carcasses on the island. And within days, coconut crabs had dragged the bones considerable distances and into their burrows, showing that Amelia's body could have been done in the same way. Now, there's another theory that's a little bit more crazy. The Japanese capture theory. Now, this suggests that Amelia and Fred crashed near or landed in the Marshall Islands, which were controlled by Japan at the time. The theory claims that they were captured by the Japanese military who suspected them of being spies for the United States, and they were either imprisoned or executed. Several pieces of evidence support this theory. In 2017, a photograph surfaced that allegedly showed Amelia and Fred on a dock in the J? Loot Atoll in near the Marshall Islands. Now, the photo shows a woman sitting with her back to the camera who appears to match Amelia's body type and a man who resembles Fred Noonan. Some say they were taken to Saipan and they died in captivity. However, experts who analyzed the photos couldn't definitively confirm that it was actually them. Now, multiple people from the Marshall Islands have claimed over the years that they saw a female pilot and a male navigator crash or be held by Japanese forces. Now, Josephine akiyama was a 12 year old schoolgirl in Saipan at the time of Earhart's disappearance. She claimed that she saw a white woman with short hair and a tall man being escorted by Japanese soldiers and described the woman as looking sad and out of place specifically because she was wearing trousers, which was very strange for women specifically in that area of Japan at the time. Now, Manuel Aldan reported that he saw two foreigners, a man and a woman, under guard by the Japanese military around the late 1930s. And he believed they were taken to a prison in Garapan, a main town in Saipan. And it's not just civilians who had claimed to have seen them. After Americans Captured Saipan In 1944, several Marines came back saying that locals told them about a foreign female pilot and her companion who had been imprisoned there before the war. But one of the most famous stories to make it back is the story of Robert Wallach. What's up, guys? I'm on the road. I would love to see you guys there. Obviously, if you don't know, I'm a standup comedian and stand up comedy is my passion. It's the thing I love to do. And seeing you guys all come out to the shows truly makes my life. I hang out after the show and say what's up to everybody? So if you want to come through, check out the show say what's up to me, it would mean the world. You can see me at all these dates and more on my website markagnon live.com and I'll see you Gu on the road. Now, when did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com Robert and his team were in what looked like a Japanese municipal building in Saipan, and they found a briefcase in the rubble of a safe that they had blown open. Inside the case were maps, passports, permits, reports, all kinds of things connecting right back to Amelia Earhart's final flight. Now, Robert's Marine pals told him he should give it to an officer since it seemed super important. So he took it to an officer, and the officer gave him a receipt for the material and stated that it would be returned if it wasn't important. Nine months after discovering the case and all the files that were in it, he was shipped to Guanakanal to prepare to fight on Okinawa. But shortly after the start of the battle, he was shot in the leg, and his bloody clothes and the belt containing his personal items and the receipt from the naval officer were cut from his body before he was rushed to a hospital ship offshore, leaving the receipt and the only evidence of an Amelia Earhart case on the island. Now, of course, there's no definitive proof of this briefcase existing beyond it. You know, just being like a crazy war story. But if it's true, why has the stuff in the briefcase not been released? The main problem with this theory is the lack of Japanese records. So after World War II, researchers searched through, you know, captured Japanese military documents, but they found no mention of capturing Amelia Earhart. It's possible such records were destroyed or classified, but without documentation, this theory just continues to be speculative. Now, a lesser known theory is the Soviet spy theory. And this claims basically that Amelia's world flight was actually a covert mission for the US Government. Some versions proposed that FDR and US Intelligence had actually asked Amelia personally to gather reconnaissance on Japanese military bases in the Pacific under the COVID of her record breaking attempts to. Another variation kind of flips the story entirely, claiming that she was secretly working for the Soviets, either willingly or after being captured with her Electra repurposed for intelligence gathering. Now, supporters point to several suspicious details. The Lockheed Electra had unusual long range modifications that went beyond what a normal civilian aircraft would need, which would make sense for some type of reconnaissance work. More importantly, President Roosevelt personally authorized a massive and costly search effort for her. And you know, this basically cost like $4 million, which was an enormous sum in 1937. She had actually become close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt before her flight. In April 1933, after a white House dinner, Amelia and Eleanor spontaneously decided to take a night flight over Washington, D.C. still wearing their evening gowns, they flew from a nearby airport and basically just went on like a joyride. Eleanor later said that it was one of the most thrilling experiences of her entire life. Amelia was a frequent guest at the White House and President FDR took a personal interest in her career and supported her aviation projects. So, of course, this relationship would only add more fuel to this theory. Now, the timing is also Pretty interesting, right? 1937, tensions with Japan were rising. The Pacific was becoming a hotspot for military activity, and the United States had limited intelligence about Japanese military installations in that region. However, Amelia's flight path would take her directly through areas where Japan was secretly building up military forces in violation of the international treaties of the time. So her navigational errors could have been intentional deviations to photograph or just personally observe these military installations. But like the Japanese capture theory, no concrete evidence has ever surfaced, no classified documents have been declassified that prove Amelia was working as a spy, and no Soviet records mention her. Now, the crash and sink theory remains the official explanation and is supported by many aviation experts. This theory states that basically what we've already said, Fred and her run out of fuel, they ditch in the ocean near Howland island, and the plane just sinks into the abyss. Now, the area around Highland island is extremely deep, about 16,000ft in some places. So this aircraft, the Electra, is extremely heavy and would have just sunk like a rock and could potentially be at the bottom of the ocean and probably covered by ocean floor. Recent expeditions have used sonar to scan the ocean floor near Howland Island. But again, nothing conclusive has ever been found. Until 2017, new discoveries were made. Researchers with TCAR reexamined the original radio logs and found many of the reports contained technical details about frequencies, transmission schedules, and voice patterns that would have been almost impossible for random people to fake. Some even matched Earhart's known speech habits. When cross referenced, these signals seem to form this consistent pattern that lines up with tides and weather. On the Nikomamora region. This suggests that at least some of the transmissions may have been authentic distress calls. But again, no one really knows. Then, in 2018, the Discovery Channel funded an expedition led by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who found the Titanic, to search the waters around Nicomamoro. Using advanced underwater robots and sonar equipment, they searched 1,200 square miles of ocean floor. But they didn't find any wreckage from the electra. Then, in 2019, another expedition using dogs trained to detect human remains searched Nikomomoro. And the dogs alerted at the site where the bones had been found in 1940, suggesting human remains may still be buried there. They collected soil samples for DNA testing, but no results ever came back that were conclusive. Then, in 2024, after five years of dead ends and no new leads, Deep Sea Vision, a marine robotics company, announced that they found what appeared to be an aircraft shaped object, roughly the size and the shape of the Electra on sonar at a depth of 16,000ft in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles from Howland Island. However, by mid-2025, a detailed follow up inspection revealed that the object was just a naturally recurring rock formation and no aircraft wreckage, ending months of speculation. But despite that setback, the search continued. And on the 88th anniversary of Earhart's disappearance, Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute announced the Tureya Object Expedition to Nika Memorial, a new expedition scheduled for November of 2025. That's just like a month away. This expedition plans on identifying an anomaly that's been detected in the island's lagoon on both satellite and archival aerial imagery dating back to 1938. With some researchers believing that this could be a piece of Earhart's plane. This mission will combine underwater photography and sediment dredging to determine if this Turea object is truly aircraft debris or just another natural formation. You can see on the screen the image here. The challenge with all these findings is that confirming them requires really expensive deep sea expeditions. And even with modern technology, the ocean floor is just impossibly difficult to search. Every few years, a new piece of evidence emerges, but so far, nothing has actually been definitively proven. So that brings us to now where everything might change. Trump just ordered the declassification and public release of all US Government records related to Amelia Earhart's disappearance, her final trip, and anything else connected to her case. Now, the announcement followed requests from lawmakers in the Pacific Islands, whose districts include Saipan, the same place where witnesses claimed the Japanese had held Amelia and Fred prisoner. Amelia Earhart's disappearance has unfortunately become more Famous than most of her actual accomplishments, which is just a shame, because what she did in her lifetime was really remarkable. Right. She wrote books about her flights and, you know, gave hundreds of lectures and used her fame to advocate for aviation in general, but also for women in aviation. And people are still obsessed with the story because there's no conclusion. We have no real answers as to what happened. It's obviously likely that she just crashed in the ocean and it sunk forever. But where's the plane? How have we not been able to find even just a little fragment of what this could actually be about? But anyway, that is the story of Amelia Earhart. Pretty fascinating. Christos, what do you think? Gun to your head? If you had to make a guess, roll the dice, what do you think happened? Happened. Definitely a lesbian. Yeah, for sure, right? Not even question. She took a joyride with Eleanor Roosevelt, who is a notorious L Word. Oh, was she? If you listen to the grandma character in Wedding Crashers, yeah. Oh, wow. What do you think they were doing in that cockpit? Oh, all I'm saying is, I don't know. I think the Japan theory is kind of fascinating. Like, there's all these reports. That photograph is pretty interesting. All the people being like, yeah, I saw these two people, a female pilot in trousers at the time is, like, strange in that area. Like, again, I don't know. I don't really know. I mean, it's possible they saw her flying over, they tracked her, she crash landed again. A lot of the transmissions from civilians around the area, they say corresponded with the rising tides, that, like, the tide would come up, the. The plane would get submerged, she would lose contact, it would go back down, they would get another transmission, it would come up, lose contact. They're hearing this, the Japanese come over, they say, hey, what are you doing here? You're under arrest. Bang, they take her. And then this is right on the, you know, brink of World War II breaking out. And then they say, hey, you guys are spying on us. Cut it out. She's connected with the President. She's connected with the President's wife intimately, in a biblical sense. I don't know. I mean, this idea of, like, oh, let's just send you around the world and see if it's possible. I. It does kind of sound like a. Like a. A CIA mission. It does sound like the government's trying to collect secrets. But we got our get back. We did. We did get our get back. I wonder if they saw Amelia Earhart and they're like, oh, Pearl Harbor. I wonder if that's where they got the inspiration from. They're like, dude, crash land a plane. Genius. Do you know those are female pilots for the Japanese? Fun fact. I don't know if that's true. I made that up. But it is one of those things. I'm like, it's possible. It's possible. I don't know. I find that very interesting. Obviously, the most obvious thing is like, yeah, they ran out of fuel, they crashed, they sank. That's it. Bada Bing. She tried to swim for a little bit. That was it. It's possible. I get that. But there's still a little party that's just like, dude, maybe the Japanese got her the human remains thing on Niko Memorial Island. I'm like, maybe she died as a castaway. I. I kind of doubt it. I don't know why. I'm like, I feel like. I don't know. I like the Japan theory the most. I like the Japan theory a lot. The Nikomamura island is like, maybe. Maybe again, I'm just like, yeah, if you just land there, you're just stuck. You're like, yeah, you were absolutely screwed. We're so far off. But they must have, like, searched that island in the search effort, right? Like, it was a massive expedition, and that island is not that far away. They probably would have searched all the possible atolls and, like, the little, you know, rocks or reefs that were sticking out of the water. So I'm like, I kind of doubt that. Ah, I don't know. See, it's so fun because all of them are. You're like, they're kind of equally possible, minus the sink. And, you know. You know, the crash and sink theory, which is the most likely. Snow crabs. Coconut crabs. Coconut crabs. Come on. Snow crabs. What is that? Dude, I'm hungry. It's late. I know. Geez. What do you guys think? I mean, you listen to all the evidence here. Maybe you know more about this than I do. Maybe you read a book about it or something. What do you think? Drop a comment. If there's any theories that I missed, I would love to know what your theory is. And, yeah, just let me know what you think. I will read all of them, because for whatever reason, this thing just gets me going. I'm genuinely so curious. Let me know if there's anything I missed or anything I got wrong. Please drop it in there. Fill in the blanks for me. And if you enjoyed this episode, Check out, you know, Camp Gagnon where I do a bunch of interviews. You can check out Religion Camp. You can also check me out on the road. Mark Agnon Live. I'm coming to a bunch of cities and if you have a theory that's really good, just tell me in person. Just come out to the show. Drop it on me. Also, the top comment on this video and all the videos going forward will be getting free merch. Yeah, you're getting merchandise from the History Camp website, Camp R and D, all that good stuff. You can check it out in the description. Anyway, thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of History Camp and I will see y' all in the future to talk about the past. Thank you all so much. See you next time. If you've made it to the end of this episode, that's because you rock with us. And for that, we rock with you. 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