A recently-discovered photograph from the National Archives is up-ending long-held beliefs surrounding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart 80 years ago, leading some experts to claim that the celebrated aviator and women’s rights role model survived her final flight and was taken prisoner by the Japanese.
The photo, found in a long-forgotten file in the National Archives, shows a woman who resembles Earhart and a man who appears to be her navigator, Fred Noonan, on a dock. The photo was purportedly taken days after Earhart crash-landed on a remote South Pacific atoll.
The discovery will be featured in a new History Channel special, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” which airs Sunday.
Independent analysts say that the photo appears legitimate and undoctored. Shawn Henry, a former executive assistant director for the FBI and an NBC News analyst, expressed confidence that the photo shows the pilot and her navigator.
“This absolutely changes history,” Henry told People. He led the team of investigators examining a range of evidence, including the photo as well as plane parts found on a remote Pacific island consistent with the aircraft Earhart was flying.
“I think we proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she survived her flight and was held prisoner by the Japanese on the island of Saipan, where she eventually died,” Henry said.
Earhart was last heard from on July 2, 1937, as she attempted to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe. Shortly after midnight, Earhart climbed into her Lockheed Electra at an airfield in Papua New Guinea and took off into the dark night.
With the 39-year-old Noonan, she flew east toward tiny Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean on the final leg of her 29,000-mile flight.
“Gas is running low,” Earhart said in what’s believed to be her final radio broadcast to a Coast Guard cutter assisting with her navigation. “Have been unable to reach you by radio. We’re flying at 1,000 feet.”
Then she vanished.
She was declared dead two years later after the United States concluded she had crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Her remains were never found.
But the investigative team with the History Channel believe Earhart and Noonan were blown around 800 miles off course but survived the ordeal. The photo purportedly showing the two on the dock may have been taken by someone who was spying for the U.S. on Japanese military activity in the Pacific.
The Japanese controlled many of the islands in the South Pacific that she and Noonan were flying over on the last leg of their adventure.
Les Kinney, a retired government investigator who has spent 15 years digging into the Earhart mystery, told NBC News that the photo “clearly indicates that Earhart was captured by the Japanese.”
Japanese authorities told NBC News they have no record of Earhart being in their custody. Kinney insists that any U.S. government documents that directly referred to Earhart as a Japanese prisoner were long ago “purged” from official files to hide the fact that the government knew Earhart was a prisoner and did nothing about it.
The photo shows a woman with short hair on a dock with her back to the camera. She’s also wearing pants, something for which Earhart was known. Nearby is a man who is standing and who looks like Noonan.
“The hairline is the most distinctive characteristic,” facial recognition expert Ken Gibson told NBC. “It’s a very sharp receding hairline. The nose is very prominent.”
The photo also shows a Japanese ship, Koshu, towing a barge with something that appears to be the same length as Earhart’s plane, NBC said. For decades, locals have claimed they saw Earhart’s plane crash before she and Noonan were taken away. Local school kids also insisted they saw Earhart in captivity.
“We believe that the Koshu took her to Saipan [in the Mariana Islands], and that she died there under the custody of the Japanese,” Gary Tarpinian, the executive producer of the History special, told People.
