She was the most famous female pilot in history, a feminist icon, and arguably the world's first influencer, all carefully built by her book publisher husband George Putnam. But when Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific in 1937, the conspiracy theories went wild: Japanese spies, government cover-ups, secret island lives. Eighty-nine years on, the most likely explanation for what happened to her might also be the most disturbing of all. This is Just The Gist of Amelia Earhart: the brilliant PR campaign, the doomed 1937 round-the-world flight, and the theory that has haunted Howland Island ever since.

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Amelia Earhart Official Website (Amelia Earhart Official Site, 2025)

Inside the Many Conspiracy Theories Surrounding Amelia Earhart's Disappearance (TIME, 2019)

Bulletin 46: The Crab Experiment (TIGHAR, 2007)

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR, 2025)

Coconut crabs: bird-eating giants on tropical islands (Natural History Museum, 2021)

Review: The Aviator and the Showman by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (The New York Times, 2025)

The Aviator and the Showman by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (Goodreads, 2025)

The Truth About Amelia Earhart (The Atlantic, 2025)

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