December 13, 2019 • 39 mins
Amelia Earhart was a living legend -- this high-flying aviation pioneer garnered international acclaim and accolades for her daring flights across the planet. On July 2nd, 1937, midway through a flight around the world, Earhart's plane disappeared. Although she was declared legally dead on January 5th, 1939, theories about the true story of her disappearance linger in the public consciousness today. So what really happened to Amelia Earhart? Why do some people believe she didn't actually die on that fateful flight?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, and
(00:24):
welcome to the show. My name is Nuel, and our
compatriot Matt is on adventures but will be returning soon.
They called me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know now. No, you just got off
(00:45):
a plane, is that correct? I did, and I got
the plane cried, and I hope I don't pass it
on to you in this sort of fuselage esque environment
that we're currently inhabiting. That's fine with me, honestly. When
I have a little bit of the crid or a
head cold, I love of writing. It's I don't know
it does it does great stuff for creativity. Maybe it's
because they don't feel like going outside and doing things.
(01:06):
Also true, man, also true? Also true? What's uh? You
and I have been on a lot of planes, as
have you Paul, and has have many people listening to
this show today and this is a question for everyone
to think about you and I can take a Sabbat
answer in this too. Right now, if you'd like, no,
what is the craziest flight you've ever had or what's
(01:26):
the longest? Are you a person who's terrified of flying?
I would say you're not. I'm not. Um, I haven't
been on any super long flights in a while. But
I think I maybe mentioned this on on our other show,
Ridiculous History, when we talked about luxury airlines and why
they don't really exist anymore. Check that one out. But uh,
there was one time where and this is gonna be
(01:46):
this makes me sound such a tool, but I'm gonna
say it anyway. In the quick version, there was one
time where I'm used taking Delta where they have USB
chargers and screens on the back of the chairs in
front of you, And I took a Southwest flight for
the first time and didn't have like a power break
for my phone and I was expecting to, you know,
have a USB and didn't have one, and my phone
died and I had to be alone with my thoughts
for the entire flight. It was terrifying, especially if you
(02:09):
were It's so strange how quickly things become normalized. And
if you were expecting something, not to crib too hard
from our earlier episode on ridiculous history. But if you're
expecting something alsodden, it's taken away. It's tough to recover
from that. It's it's um it's in a strange way.
It's similar to having two very different beverages next to
(02:31):
your plates when you're eating and then expecting you're going to,
I don't know, drink water, but you accidentally pick up
the juice or the milk and your mouth goes, what why?
Or the kerosene or the kerosene. The kerosene very popular
beverage here in Atlanta. It's strange that there are millions
of people frankly terrified of flying, especially when you consider
(02:54):
that statistically you are much much much more likely to
get into an automobile act than ever to be involved
in a plane crash. But whether you love flying, whether
you hate those vast stretches of sky, sun and cloud,
whether you've been on a plane, uh you know, three
times a week for most of your life, or whether
(03:16):
you've never been on a plane or haven't yet, you
have it at least some inkling of the story of
one Amelia Earhart and this is the topic of our
episode today. So here are the facts. Amelia Earhart was
born on July seven, and she was the daughter of
Amy and Edwin Earhart lived with her mother's parents until
(03:40):
she was twelve uh, and they were quite wealthy, so
she was afforded some some privilege, including um attending private school.
And then n nine, Amelia and her youngest sister moved
to Des Moines. Is that you pronounced the s? I
say Deine de Moine? You want to go with de Moines?
Iowa um, And that's where they were reunited with their
(04:00):
parents because their father went to work for a railroad
company and he moved there to join them and take
that that gig. Yeah, they moved him to a new position.
The the family continued to move around from St. Paul, Minnesota,
to Springfield, Illinois and so on. This was not a
happy home, you see. Edwin Earhart had been waging an
(04:25):
unsuccessful battle with alcoholism for the entirety of Amelia's life,
and this experience with parents who had substance abuse problems
gave air Heart a lifelong, abiding dislike of booze along
with the deep, deep desire for financial security and you
(04:45):
have to you know, you you can understand it when
you think of the disparity she encountered in her life.
She had very wealthy maternal grandparents and then struggling immediate parents,
you know, so she saw both sides, the have and
the have nots of life. So in nineteen fourteen, Amy Earhart,
Amelia's mother, uh takes the kids, she leaves her husband,
(05:07):
and they go to Chicago. In Chicago, Amelia graduates from
the Hyde Park School in nineteen fifteen. Interesting historical side note.
In the yearbook, she's described as a e the girl
in brown who walks alone. It's a dubious Uh what
do they call them? Yeah, honorific maybe a thing, honorifics
(05:31):
or a thing. But I think honorifics are closer to titles, right,
I think you might be right. Um, it's true, the
girl in brown who walks alone. That's intense. Actually yeah,
it's almost like a ninja wondering ninja kind of nickname.
You now, unhappy intellectual, I mean high school Ben Bollan
would have been all about h getting her number, telegram address.
(05:53):
What did they do back then? Not clear? Not particular
Morse code right signal um No. But she went on
to go to a place called the Ogant School, which
was a private high school. And this is interesting, I
never really heard this. I guess it goes straight from
high school to junior college, which I guess it's like
the early year of college. Or is it more of
(06:13):
like a community college. Yeah, it's it feels like it's
either a community college or a prep school, you know, right,
because if it was a community community college sort of
as a as a sort of like a second like
not as prestigious. Right. It's a two year program. A
lot of community colleges have a two year program. And
so sometimes people, for one reason or another will take
their prerequisites at a community college to your college and
(06:37):
then go for the latter half of their college career
at a more expensive institution. That makes sense, so um.
Then she went on to visit her sister Muriel, who
was living in Toronto, and that is where she saw
someone who had returned from World War One and had
lost a limb in combat um an amputee. Yes. And
(06:58):
this moves her. She immediately refuses to return to her
junior college high school and instead becomes a volunteer nurse
in a veteran hospital. And then she also during her
time working as a volunteer nurse, she also becomes a
pacifist and this is something that she will keep for
(07:20):
as far as we know, the rest of her life.
Emphasis on as far as we know. So that's that's
the early days of Amelia Earhart. But of course most
of us know her for her aviation career. That's right.
Another first for Amelia was in nineteen fifteen when she
(07:40):
saw her very first air show and and had the
opportunity to actually ride on an airplane. She seemed to
become passionate about things pretty quickly. She was very driven
and had a sense of what her mission was in life.
I think that's interesting part of her character. She knew
right away that she wanted to take flying lessons, so
she went to a place called Burt can His Airfield,
which was on Long Beach Boulevard in l A from
(08:03):
a woman with a lovely name, Netta Snooks. Yeah, yeah,
Netta's Snooks, which sounds like a made up name but
is very real. But again, as I think we've said before,
on the air all names are made up. At some
point on December fifte Amelia finally receives her license from
the National Aeronautics Association or NAH. She was working part
(08:28):
time as a file clerk, as an office assistant, as
a photographer, as a truck driver, and she was pinching
her penny. She was scrounging and saving, and she got
a little bit of help from her mother which enabled
Amelia Earhart to buy her own plane. Think about how
extraordinary that is. Okay, first of all, like a little
(08:49):
bit of scratch from her mother to buy a plane, right,
And we know a little bit about this plane, don't we.
We do know a little bit about it. It was
what was called a Kinner airster, just like the Kinner
Airfield kinnra airster was two seats, single engine biplane. So
it wasn't you know, it was still a plane. It
(09:13):
would get you in the air. You can actually see
a photograph of Amelia Earhart and her instructor, net A
Snook standing together by the by the airster. Oh yeah,
so it's like it looks almost like one of those
fighter type planes you would have seen in uh in
World War One. Yeah, it's it's like a byplane, I
guess exactly. Uh And she loved this plane, and she
(09:37):
was it was. It was such a tremendous moving moment
for her to be able to purchase her own plane.
That's still a pipe dream for a lot of people
here in twenty nineteen as we record this. However, flying,
as anybody with a pilot's license kena sure us, can
be a very expensive hobby. And she could afford to
buy the plane, but she could not afford to continue flying,
(10:00):
you know, the maintenance fees, fuel, fuel, definitely, So eventually
she sold her plane and she bought an automobile. She
drove her mother to Boston, where her younger sister Muriel
was teaching school, and a little bit after that she
re enrolls in college. She goes to Columbia University in
(10:21):
New York City, but she doesn't have the scratch again
to continue studies for more than one year. A little
bit dejected, she returns to Boston. She becomes a social worker,
she joins the National Aeronautics Association, and she's still in
her spare time when she can finds, uh finds opportunities
(10:42):
to fly. So I wonder what she thinks she must
have just like taken a class or like you know,
rented one for the afternoon or I guess, so, yeah,
that feels like a big trust fall. Really rent my plane,
rent my plane exactly. So then in nineteen ear Heart
gets a pretty incredible opportunity. Um. You guys remember Charles W. E.
Charles Lindbergh Um, who became the first person, obviously a man,
(11:07):
to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean back in so
this guy named George Palmer Putnam um was the editor
of a book about Charles Lindbergh's voyage and decided to
kind of drum up some pr with a a sort
of a stunt that he would have who have seen
it as a stunt of the time. It's like, hey,
let's let's lets let's put a lady on a plane.
(11:28):
You know, we'll make a make a lady do the
same flight. Because that that's crazy, that could never happen.
Imagine that. Imagine that put a dame up in a
biplane was gracious. Yeah, the the uproar must have been marked.
So he dubs her lady Lyndy because of yeah, it's
it's just a little bit on the nose and kind
of a little misogynistic to say, to say the least
(11:50):
Um and decides to make her kind of the star
of the show. So Um puts her on a plane
with a pilot by the name of William Stoltz and
a mechanic by the name of Lewis Gordon Um, and
she crossed the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Wales on June
eighteenth through nineteenth of nineteen Um. But she wasn't flying
the plane. Yeah, and this really bothered her. She never
(12:13):
once touched the controls of the plane and afterward described
herself as little more than a quote sack of potatoes. Still,
she became world renowned as the first woman to fly
the Atlantic. George Putnam clearly was capitalizing on this, this
marketing opportunity. He became Amelia Earhart's manager and later her
(12:37):
husband when they married in nineteen thirty one. So here's
what he did as her manager. He arranged all of
her flying engagements in step with this exhaustive series of
lecture tours, like she would lecture for twenty nine days
out of thirty one, like in a row. Yeah. And
eventually she grew irritated because, as she said, you know,
(13:01):
I'm getting I'm reading the press here and people are
saying that I am not an actual pilot, that more
or less a puppet that my husband created for public
relations purposes. So I am going to prove to people
that I am a the real deal, a genuine aviator.
And this leads her to pilot a Lockheed Electra from Newfoundland, Canada,
(13:24):
all the way to Ireland. This is impressive because Lockheed
Electra is a tiny, tiny, tiny play it's a single engine.
It's true and less. You think you've made a mistake
and you're actually listening to an episode of ridiculous History,
because that's sort of how it sounds with just the
two of us doing a topic like this. I actually
kind of forgot myself for a second that what show
we're doing? Um, but we're getting there, guys. There's a
(13:47):
twist comment, I promise, yes there is. On May one two,
five years after Lindbergh makes his solo flight, Amelia Earhart
becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo,
and for the next five years she is a champion
of women's rights as well as commercial aviation. She sets
(14:09):
numerous world records, she gets accolades and awards from across
the planet, and she decides eventually that she will circumnavigate
the globe that she will fly around the world, And
after a brief word with our sponsors, we'll walk through
the infamous last voyage of Amelia Earhart. On July two seven,
(14:40):
just twenty two days before her birthday, Amelia Earhart and
her navigator friend Fred Noonan vanished, partially through their attempt
at servant circumnavigating the globe. Um they vanished, we know this.
They vanaged somewhere between Lay, New Guinea and Howland Island,
(15:00):
and the Navy of the U. S. Navy searched Um,
the largest swath they'd ever searched for a missing person
and history at that point, and they found neither plane
nor crew. Then, on January of nineteen thirty nine, Amelia
Earhart was declared legally dead after being missing for eighteen months.
(15:24):
So what happened? Here's where it gets crazy. Theories on
the disappearance of Amelia Earhart have proliferated for almost a
century now. The official report concluded that Earhart and Noonan
were unable to land on their you know there planned
destination of Howland Island, and that while trying to find
(15:48):
this destination they ran out of fuel. They crashed into
the water and sank. But of course that sort of
explanation did very little to quell suspicion, especially because there
were no roomain means, a plane nor person to be found.
There are a couple of different theories that run counter
to the official narrative. One theory suggests that this is
(16:09):
the weirdest one, that Amelia Earhart actually didn't die. She's
not only survived, but she returned to the US. She
changed her name to Irene Bolom b O l A
M and lived a long, long life and obscurity. There
are actually some books written about this. But why To
one hand, it's strange, she unhappy and I want to
(16:33):
do what a weird name? To change her name to
blem No one suspects them right now, I guess not right,
that's true. It's very clear. I don't know, man, are you?
Are you potentially a missing aviator? No relation to feel
like how I didn't really answer your question that you know.
I love it when you do that. Actually, it's one
of my favorite things in the whole world. Um So
(16:54):
in a book by Joe Class from the sies, I'm
not quite sure exactly what came out called Amelia Earhart
lives Um. This gentleman makes the case that Earhart was
in fact captured Um and then taken to Saipan and
then to Tokyo, where she was a prisoner of the
Imperial Palace until nine. The theory argues that Earhart's Secret
(17:21):
was used as a bargaining ship after the war to
allow the Japanese Emperor to remain in power. What secret
has this been? The secret would be that they were
able that the Japanese government was using air Heart as
leverage to preserve the emperor's standing in the community post
World War Two. The idea here being that there was
(17:44):
a what's that term so popular nowadays, a bit of
a quid pro quo? Oh, yes, clarius, a bit of
a quick pro quo, and that, uh, you know, if
if the Allies allowed the emperor to retain the position
of the royal family, then air Heart would be returned
to the US. Of course, that doesn't explain the name change, right,
(18:05):
So bracket that we'll get back to that one. There's
another much more popular theory that we wanted to share
with you today. That's right. Another widely held belief is
that air Heart and noon In actually did touchdown on
a remote South Pacific island called Nico Maro Role. Okay
there in I thought he did great. I'm not a
native speaker and I'm not either, but we always try
(18:26):
to do our best. Um and this at the time
of their disappearance would have been uninhabited and was known
as Gardener Island. Um The Air Heart Project which is
a division of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
or TIGER h I G h A R. I still
think it's pronounced Tiger and it's an organization dedicated to
(18:48):
investigating this hypothesis. Um SO Tiger has been investigating the
island since n and they've collected a ton of intriguing
things related to the case. Uh improv tools, remains of shoes,
and aircraft wreckage parts, which is consistent with air hearts,
plane and an electra exactly. They also discovered that a
(19:13):
few years after Air Heart vanished, a British colonial officer
found the remains of a castaway on what was then
called Gardner Island, now known as Nico Mororo. The bones
were sent to Fiji for analysis, but ultimately they were
misplaced and lost. Let's fast forward to the future during
(19:34):
Tigers Tigers expedition, Their team found some of the most
compelling clues they had ever seen. They were looking around
in a spot where they had previously identified what was
likely the remains of a campfire, and they found three
pieces of a pocket knife. They found shells that have
(19:56):
been cut open, glass, cosmetic jar fragments, there little bits
of makeup, and bone fragments that they thought might be
from a human being. Um, let's let's put our skeptic
hats on because we're gonna talk a little bit about
a History Channel documentary. Did you hear about this one?
(20:17):
You know how a History Channel and a lot of
the cable TV channels have those investigative shows and sometimes
their top notch, very well researched, very honest, and other
times they're a little too George Sucalos, you know, saying
ancient aliens kind of stuff from Yeah, that's a frow
(20:38):
and more of just like a wild hair do. Let's
say it's a main Yeah, he's a he's a nice guy.
I've heard I like his I'd like his whole name.
In the hair situation, Sucalos fun to say, it's kind
a nice mouth field. Yeah, No, it's true. Um and
this one was of that variety. Now was it good? Well,
this is the question we leave to you and your
(20:59):
fellow listen is right. The name of the documentary was
Amelia Earhart The Lost Evidence, and it dives head first
into the theory that Noonan and Earhart were captured by
Japanese forces. In the documentary, there's a retired federal agent.
His name is Les Kenny and less. Kenny and his
team searched through records at the National Archives to find
(21:20):
any overlooked clues to the disappearance of Airheart. That's right.
He and his team found a photograph that was stamped
with official Office of Naval Intelligence marks that read Marshall Islands,
jalluis Atoll, Jallowe Island, Jallowe harbor Um and the photo
a ship can be seen that's towing a barge with
(21:42):
an airplane on the back of it, and then nearby
on a dock you can see several people and Kenny
argues the photo had to have been taking a four
N because the US Air Forces conducted more than thirty
bombing runs on Jallowe in nineteen forty three and forty four.
He believes are through that looks like a range of time,
(22:04):
so they did it quite frequently. He believes the plane
on the barge is the Electra and that the two
people are two of the people on the dock are
air Heart and noon In. And then we have a
way In also in the same documentary from Doug Karner
and Kent Gibson. These are forensic analysts, and Karner looked
(22:25):
at it and said, Okay, no one has messed with
this photo, meaning no one has altered it. It was
from that time and is legit. And then Kent Gibson
specializes in recognizing faces, and he says it's very likely
that the two individuals they point out on the dock
there are air Heart and noon And both of them
(22:49):
also say that the ship in the photo is a
Japanese vessel called the Koshu Maru, and they think this
is the ship that took air Heart at noon In
away after they survived that crash landing. If that is
you believe the television show, that's where we have our
skeptic hats on, you know what I mean, because we
(23:11):
have to ask ourselves not in any way being derogatory
toward the experts in the show, nor to the History
Channel or what have you. We have to ask ourselves
how much of this we believe? And it's it's a
good question. We have to ask ourselves how sincere or
how disingenuous some of these outfits can be. You know,
(23:33):
what was the name of the ship in question? The
Koshuo marooms had the same as the Kobayashiro Maru. That
is similar. I thought the same thing, but it is
not the unsolvable scenario and Star Trek training, isn't it though?
An unsolvable scenario? I'm sorry, I get it. Yeah, Amelia
(23:54):
air heard version. We could call it like fat Maru
the air heard Mauru, the old Coue mare. Remember bats Mauru?
That was always my favorite Sanrio character. Oh god, yeah,
barely bats Muru was it? Was he a penguin? I
can't remember. I don't know. Let's see, this is not important.
We're taking a little sidetrack here. Pat's Marou Peng with
(24:18):
four little spiky hairs coincidence. Always looks like he's in
the just the worst mood. He's easy, he's a little
cranky guy. He's you know, he's got dead eyes. He's
staring at you like like he wants to murder you
double down on that. Yes, weren't you finger waged by
the public? Was? I? I thought you were. I thought
(24:39):
somebody reached out and said something about how that they
didn't think it was very nice that you would Malayan
Kristen Dunst his eyes in that, well, I don't think
it's very nice that their anti dead eyes as someone
who has a pair of dead eyes themselves. Funny story. Again,
don't want to get derailed too much, but this is
worth describing. Um buddy of ours. You we we we
both know. His name is Connor Outlift. He's a comedian
(25:01):
with the operations in the Brigade. He made a podcast
called Dead Eyes because he auditioned for a Band of Brothers.
Remember that television sequel to Saving Private Ryan that Tom
Hanks has something to do with. He directed and he
was cast but then fired in the eleventh hour and
an agent made the horrible mistake of telling him. Mr
Hanks says, he decided you have dead eyes, and now
(25:25):
you're gonna and that now. He made a podcast series
about how he wants to like track down Tom Hanks
and get to the bottom of this whole dead Eyes situation.
So you can check that out. It's on, it's on
the interwebs. It's to be fair to Kirsten Dudds, who
is I think a great actor. Uh, I'm particularly doubling
down on her role in Interview with a Vampire, not
(25:48):
her fantastic turn in that series of cheerleader movies. Do
you remember those? Was it Bring it On? Bring it On?
Bring it On? It was great. Stomp the Yard, now
that that was That was another one, right, it was
more of a stomp movie. It was in that same
time time. There were a lot of uh, what is
it bringing on? So she just said, no, there's another
(26:09):
one though. You got served. That's right where it's like
I'm gonna dance up on you remember South Park made
fund of that. It's so funny. Then I was just
briefly scrolling through Instagram and our friends over on ladylike
posted today this maybe it's gonna be pressing it for
the story. A headline from back in these days. Amelia
Earhart weds G. P. Putnam, but Atlantic Flyer will remain
(26:31):
miss air Heart for business purposes and writing exactly. Yeah,
this was this was a huge, huge deal. This is
one of the most famous people on the planet. No smoke,
no hyperbole. So it's it's no wonder that there was
such an extensive, expensive search for these missing aviators, and
(26:52):
it's also no wonder that the media became obsessed with it.
It's correct, it's absolutely correct to be particle of the
television show. Again, we're not saying it's not true. We're
not saying it's manipulative. We're just saying, be aware of
be aware of the motives behind some of those sorts
of programs. Anyhow, there are other things that add tantalizing
(27:16):
bits to the cauldron of conspiracy here. One is that
a number of the residents of Marshall Islands claimed they
witnessed the aviator's land there, and the Marshall Islands issued
stamps commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the air Heart flight,
and the stamps show air Hearts plane crash landing at
milly A Toll and the recovery of that plane by
(27:40):
the Koshu Maru. This leads to way quiet. Okay, so
this is a lot of fun as a thought exercise
to say, what if the people on the plane survived
the plane crash just difficult thing to do, And what
if Japanese forces took them captive. The big question is
why on Earth would they take her captive. We'll tell
(28:03):
you after a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
So people who believe this theory don't believe that the
Japanese forces were just you know, randomly capturing people for funzies.
(28:23):
And they don't think that they captured air Hearts specifically
because she was a celebrity. No. You see, people who
believe in this UH post crash survival abduction scenario also
believed that Amelia Earhart was a spy was working as
a secret agent for Uncle Sam. Partially this is based
(28:45):
on the fact that she did have a documented close
with friendship with Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt.
And folks who believe this theory tend to suggest that
the plane crashed after the pilots veered off course in
order to UH pursue a spying mission over japan occupied
(29:06):
islands in the Pacific, right. And the thing about that
is it feels plausible because they're in the right place.
They have a great cover, you know what I mean,
They can always fly over smilings and then just say
that they got lost right, and this is this is
(29:27):
fascinating to me because we have seen accusations similar to
this kind of thing happened before in the world of espionage.
As a matter of fact, a few years back, there
were three uh three Western students arrested in Iran because
they had apparently crossed over the border. They were arrested
as spies. They were all in their early twenties and
(29:48):
they're ostensibly they were just hikers with a very bad
sense of direction. And that story kind of disappeared from
the news, but it is it is an excellent cover story.
Just say, well, whoops, we were you know, we were
in the air for so long. We just got a
wool mix up. Yeah, it doesn't really quite add up.
(30:09):
It's a little yeah. It's one of those things where
you kind of just sucking air between your teeth and
go right, maybe my teeth are cold sensitive. I can't
suck air between my teeth like, oh man, I know
it hurts me right to the core of my root.
Well probably the yeah, the root of your dental roots.
It probably. It probably makes you seem like a nicer
(30:29):
person because you don't have that expression in your non
verbal vocabulary. I do this though, suck my teeth. Yeah, yeah,
I remember a few years back one of my friend
groups literally banned me for suspended me for a while
from saying tut tut. That's very tight, man. And then
I just they're describing things. It's tout. Just one tut
(30:52):
is is a little less egregious, I would, I would argue, yeah, yeah, well,
also it's a it's a little more dismissive. It's callab something.
Tout means you don't have time for both touts. Oh dang,
you're right because to scolding, but tut is almost like, yeah,
you're a real sucker. I don't even have time for
the second time for you. And I've actually been able
to propagate that way. That's weird. I use it. Everybody
(31:14):
knows what we mean when we say it, and every
time I just once, you know, then every time I
use it under my breath, I give you credit. Thank
you very well. That's that must be an interesting conversation
for people. And this so this is strange though it's
it's plausible, No, it's possible. It is plausible that spycraft
will be conducted that way, but it's a little bit
(31:36):
of a leap to say it was definitely air Heart.
The story, however, does not end there. We mentioned those, uh,
the British forces that found those thirteen bones, including a
skull on the island. They sent a telegram after the discovery.
That's back in the forties and they said it was
possibly the skull of Amelia Earhart, but doctors who examined
it at the time said it belonged to a short
(31:58):
European male. Even now some people disagree with this assessment.
But here's the question. If the thirteen bones they found
did in fact belong to Amelia Earhart, what happened to
all the other bones in a human skeleton? Where did
they go? There's a weird theory. It's that giant coconut
(32:18):
crabs consumed the flesh and carried away the bones. And
coconut crabs actually do that kind of thing. Have you
seen a coconut crab? Did we not talk about them
in the Cryptid sequel episode? And they were mistaken because
they're so bonkers looking, they're gigantic. First of all, these
creatures are crazy looking. Yeah, we again, I forgive us
(32:42):
if this is redundant, but um, they look like something
of like a face hugger, uh meets a lobster meets
a crayfish meets a crab um and they're they're heavily
armored and the limbs are all kinds of cuthoul who ask,
And they can crack coconuts. They just wrapped their weird
you know, kitanous arms, what do you call them limbs
(33:04):
around these coconuts and they can crack them right open,
and as we all know, that's a it's a hell
of a job. Yeah, absolutely this. They look like the
hybrid of a lobster and crab that also took a
lot of steroids. They look like the Arthur pod that's
been juicing. And what we found is that they are
capable of moving bones, so they could have taken those
(33:29):
other one three bones in the human skeleton and moved
it around. But at this point we have to pause
and ask ourselves what is the most likely sequence of
events here? Well, remember the Amelia Earhart lives guy Class.
It turns out there is a real Irene Bolom and
(33:51):
she was super not cool with being accused of being
Amelia Earhart. She sued Class as publishers for one point
five million dollars and said, I'm not Amelia Earhart. I've
got pictures from of myself from the thirties that prove it.
Stop bugging me and pull this book from publication. She
holding up newspapers of the day. That's I mean, come on,
(34:13):
that's the only thing that's gonna take to convince me.
You gotta hold up a newspaper. That's the only thing
that checks out. The only thing we have another. We
have another series of developments here. Dr Aaron Kimberley, the
researcher at the University of South Florida, was recently asked
to examine some of those bones that have been rediscovered
at a museum on this island, Nico Mororo, to see
(34:36):
if they might be Airheart's actual bones, because, as we
said before, they had been examined in the past, but
they mysteriously disappeared in Fiji, and now experts are thinking
the bones have been found again at a museum and
cultural center in Kiabatti. The bones were stored in this
large box with their several sets of different remains that
(34:59):
all stored together. One set was female and matched ear
Hearts rough description as we record now just this year,
just just a little while ago, these bones were sent
for DNA testing, and the plan is to compare the
DNA from the bones against the DNA of air hearts
one living niece. So while the mystery remains for now,
(35:22):
we're closer to a solid answer than we've ever been before. Wait,
so this is ongoing, This is like the tests are
in the mail. Yeah, like October of that's pretty cool.
When are we gonna hear We don't know, you know,
it's weird because we we get these uh close calls,
these tantalizing brushes with answers in DNA cases all the time,
(35:45):
Like there was one involving the Zodiac Killer that was
you know, the team we worked very closely with. It
does the Monster Zodiac series. We're really hoping it was
going to be a big scoop at the end of
the of the series and it did not pan out.
If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, absolutely, or we're still waiting
and this is another waiting game. That's where we'll leave
it today. But we want to hear from you. This
(36:08):
concludes our episode, but not our show. Let us know
what you think happened to Amelia Earhart. Do you think
that there's enough evidence to prove that either she or
noon In or both of them survived for a time
after the plane crash. Do you think it's just a
case where humanity likes a good story and a good mystery.
(36:28):
What do you think the DNA will find? Were they
secret lovers? Where they secret lovers? Were they secret spies?
Also a question? Let us know. You can find us
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(36:49):
am at how Now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram, and
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know that handle is my Magna mopus. I'm also on
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(37:13):
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(37:35):
just mind melt like we do. Yeah, the improv one
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going to be the first person to hear you will
be Matt Frederick. So be kind because we like you
hold him dear to our hearts. And now, I mean
he is a he's a real glutton for punishment with these.
He has notifications turned on. So the moment that you
call in be at three in the morning our time,
(37:56):
he gets that doorbell sound effect that you hear at
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hearing now, uh, and that that wakes him up, and
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But he is the first line of defense when it
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(38:18):
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Read it's a kind review on your podcast platform of choice,
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(38:39):
radio dot com stuff they don't want you to know,
(39:00):
as a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, and
(00:24):
welcome to the show. My name is Nuel, and our
compatriot Matt is on adventures but will be returning soon.
They called me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know now. No, you just got off
(00:45):
a plane, is that correct? I did, and I got
the plane cried, and I hope I don't pass it
on to you in this sort of fuselage esque environment
that we're currently inhabiting. That's fine with me, honestly. When
I have a little bit of the crid or a
head cold, I love of writing. It's I don't know
it does it does great stuff for creativity. Maybe it's
because they don't feel like going outside and doing things.
(01:06):
Also true, man, also true? Also true? What's uh? You
and I have been on a lot of planes, as
have you Paul, and has have many people listening to
this show today and this is a question for everyone
to think about you and I can take a Sabbat
answer in this too. Right now, if you'd like, no,
what is the craziest flight you've ever had or what's
(01:26):
the longest? Are you a person who's terrified of flying?
I would say you're not. I'm not. Um, I haven't
been on any super long flights in a while. But
I think I maybe mentioned this on on our other show,
Ridiculous History, when we talked about luxury airlines and why
they don't really exist anymore. Check that one out. But uh,
there was one time where and this is gonna be
(01:46):
this makes me sound such a tool, but I'm gonna
say it anyway. In the quick version, there was one
time where I'm used taking Delta where they have USB
chargers and screens on the back of the chairs in
front of you, And I took a Southwest flight for
the first time and didn't have like a power break
for my phone and I was expecting to, you know,
have a USB and didn't have one, and my phone
died and I had to be alone with my thoughts
for the entire flight. It was terrifying, especially if you
(02:09):
were It's so strange how quickly things become normalized. And
if you were expecting something, not to crib too hard
from our earlier episode on ridiculous history. But if you're
expecting something alsodden, it's taken away. It's tough to recover
from that. It's it's um it's in a strange way.
It's similar to having two very different beverages next to
(02:31):
your plates when you're eating and then expecting you're going to,
I don't know, drink water, but you accidentally pick up
the juice or the milk and your mouth goes, what why?
Or the kerosene or the kerosene. The kerosene very popular
beverage here in Atlanta. It's strange that there are millions
of people frankly terrified of flying, especially when you consider
(02:54):
that statistically you are much much much more likely to
get into an automobile act than ever to be involved
in a plane crash. But whether you love flying, whether
you hate those vast stretches of sky, sun and cloud,
whether you've been on a plane, uh you know, three
times a week for most of your life, or whether
(03:16):
you've never been on a plane or haven't yet, you
have it at least some inkling of the story of
one Amelia Earhart and this is the topic of our
episode today. So here are the facts. Amelia Earhart was
born on July seven, and she was the daughter of
Amy and Edwin Earhart lived with her mother's parents until
(03:40):
she was twelve uh, and they were quite wealthy, so
she was afforded some some privilege, including um attending private school.
And then n nine, Amelia and her youngest sister moved
to Des Moines. Is that you pronounced the s? I
say Deine de Moine? You want to go with de Moines?
Iowa um, And that's where they were reunited with their
(04:00):
parents because their father went to work for a railroad
company and he moved there to join them and take
that that gig. Yeah, they moved him to a new position.
The the family continued to move around from St. Paul, Minnesota,
to Springfield, Illinois and so on. This was not a
happy home, you see. Edwin Earhart had been waging an
(04:25):
unsuccessful battle with alcoholism for the entirety of Amelia's life,
and this experience with parents who had substance abuse problems
gave air Heart a lifelong, abiding dislike of booze along
with the deep, deep desire for financial security and you
(04:45):
have to you know, you you can understand it when
you think of the disparity she encountered in her life.
She had very wealthy maternal grandparents and then struggling immediate parents,
you know, so she saw both sides, the have and
the have nots of life. So in nineteen fourteen, Amy Earhart,
Amelia's mother, uh takes the kids, she leaves her husband,
(05:07):
and they go to Chicago. In Chicago, Amelia graduates from
the Hyde Park School in nineteen fifteen. Interesting historical side note.
In the yearbook, she's described as a e the girl
in brown who walks alone. It's a dubious Uh what
do they call them? Yeah, honorific maybe a thing, honorifics
(05:31):
or a thing. But I think honorifics are closer to titles, right,
I think you might be right. Um, it's true, the
girl in brown who walks alone. That's intense. Actually yeah,
it's almost like a ninja wondering ninja kind of nickname.
You now, unhappy intellectual, I mean high school Ben Bollan
would have been all about h getting her number, telegram address.
(05:53):
What did they do back then? Not clear? Not particular
Morse code right signal um No. But she went on
to go to a place called the Ogant School, which
was a private high school. And this is interesting, I
never really heard this. I guess it goes straight from
high school to junior college, which I guess it's like
the early year of college. Or is it more of
(06:13):
like a community college. Yeah, it's it feels like it's
either a community college or a prep school, you know, right,
because if it was a community community college sort of
as a as a sort of like a second like
not as prestigious. Right. It's a two year program. A
lot of community colleges have a two year program. And
so sometimes people, for one reason or another will take
their prerequisites at a community college to your college and
(06:37):
then go for the latter half of their college career
at a more expensive institution. That makes sense, so um.
Then she went on to visit her sister Muriel, who
was living in Toronto, and that is where she saw
someone who had returned from World War One and had
lost a limb in combat um an amputee. Yes. And
(06:58):
this moves her. She immediately refuses to return to her
junior college high school and instead becomes a volunteer nurse
in a veteran hospital. And then she also during her
time working as a volunteer nurse, she also becomes a
pacifist and this is something that she will keep for
(07:20):
as far as we know, the rest of her life.
Emphasis on as far as we know. So that's that's
the early days of Amelia Earhart. But of course most
of us know her for her aviation career. That's right.
Another first for Amelia was in nineteen fifteen when she
(07:40):
saw her very first air show and and had the
opportunity to actually ride on an airplane. She seemed to
become passionate about things pretty quickly. She was very driven
and had a sense of what her mission was in life.
I think that's interesting part of her character. She knew
right away that she wanted to take flying lessons, so
she went to a place called Burt can His Airfield,
which was on Long Beach Boulevard in l A from
(08:03):
a woman with a lovely name, Netta Snooks. Yeah, yeah,
Netta's Snooks, which sounds like a made up name but
is very real. But again, as I think we've said before,
on the air all names are made up. At some
point on December fifte Amelia finally receives her license from
the National Aeronautics Association or NAH. She was working part
(08:28):
time as a file clerk, as an office assistant, as
a photographer, as a truck driver, and she was pinching
her penny. She was scrounging and saving, and she got
a little bit of help from her mother which enabled
Amelia Earhart to buy her own plane. Think about how
extraordinary that is. Okay, first of all, like a little
(08:49):
bit of scratch from her mother to buy a plane, right,
And we know a little bit about this plane, don't we.
We do know a little bit about it. It was
what was called a Kinner airster, just like the Kinner
Airfield kinnra airster was two seats, single engine biplane. So
it wasn't you know, it was still a plane. It
(09:13):
would get you in the air. You can actually see
a photograph of Amelia Earhart and her instructor, net A
Snook standing together by the by the airster. Oh yeah,
so it's like it looks almost like one of those
fighter type planes you would have seen in uh in
World War One. Yeah, it's it's like a byplane, I
guess exactly. Uh And she loved this plane, and she
(09:37):
was it was. It was such a tremendous moving moment
for her to be able to purchase her own plane.
That's still a pipe dream for a lot of people
here in twenty nineteen as we record this. However, flying,
as anybody with a pilot's license kena sure us, can
be a very expensive hobby. And she could afford to
buy the plane, but she could not afford to continue flying,
(10:00):
you know, the maintenance fees, fuel, fuel, definitely, So eventually
she sold her plane and she bought an automobile. She
drove her mother to Boston, where her younger sister Muriel
was teaching school, and a little bit after that she
re enrolls in college. She goes to Columbia University in
(10:21):
New York City, but she doesn't have the scratch again
to continue studies for more than one year. A little
bit dejected, she returns to Boston. She becomes a social worker,
she joins the National Aeronautics Association, and she's still in
her spare time when she can finds, uh finds opportunities
(10:42):
to fly. So I wonder what she thinks she must
have just like taken a class or like you know,
rented one for the afternoon or I guess, so, yeah,
that feels like a big trust fall. Really rent my plane,
rent my plane exactly. So then in nineteen ear Heart
gets a pretty incredible opportunity. Um. You guys remember Charles W. E.
Charles Lindbergh Um, who became the first person, obviously a man,
(11:07):
to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean back in so
this guy named George Palmer Putnam um was the editor
of a book about Charles Lindbergh's voyage and decided to
kind of drum up some pr with a a sort
of a stunt that he would have who have seen
it as a stunt of the time. It's like, hey,
let's let's lets let's put a lady on a plane.
(11:28):
You know, we'll make a make a lady do the
same flight. Because that that's crazy, that could never happen.
Imagine that. Imagine that put a dame up in a
biplane was gracious. Yeah, the the uproar must have been marked.
So he dubs her lady Lyndy because of yeah, it's
it's just a little bit on the nose and kind
of a little misogynistic to say, to say the least
(11:50):
Um and decides to make her kind of the star
of the show. So Um puts her on a plane
with a pilot by the name of William Stoltz and
a mechanic by the name of Lewis Gordon Um, and
she crossed the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Wales on June
eighteenth through nineteenth of nineteen Um. But she wasn't flying
the plane. Yeah, and this really bothered her. She never
(12:13):
once touched the controls of the plane and afterward described
herself as little more than a quote sack of potatoes. Still,
she became world renowned as the first woman to fly
the Atlantic. George Putnam clearly was capitalizing on this, this
marketing opportunity. He became Amelia Earhart's manager and later her
(12:37):
husband when they married in nineteen thirty one. So here's
what he did as her manager. He arranged all of
her flying engagements in step with this exhaustive series of
lecture tours, like she would lecture for twenty nine days
out of thirty one, like in a row. Yeah. And
eventually she grew irritated because, as she said, you know,
(13:01):
I'm getting I'm reading the press here and people are
saying that I am not an actual pilot, that more
or less a puppet that my husband created for public
relations purposes. So I am going to prove to people
that I am a the real deal, a genuine aviator.
And this leads her to pilot a Lockheed Electra from Newfoundland, Canada,
(13:24):
all the way to Ireland. This is impressive because Lockheed
Electra is a tiny, tiny, tiny play it's a single engine.
It's true and less. You think you've made a mistake
and you're actually listening to an episode of ridiculous History,
because that's sort of how it sounds with just the
two of us doing a topic like this. I actually
kind of forgot myself for a second that what show
we're doing? Um, but we're getting there, guys. There's a
(13:47):
twist comment, I promise, yes there is. On May one two,
five years after Lindbergh makes his solo flight, Amelia Earhart
becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo,
and for the next five years she is a champion
of women's rights as well as commercial aviation. She sets
(14:09):
numerous world records, she gets accolades and awards from across
the planet, and she decides eventually that she will circumnavigate
the globe that she will fly around the world, And
after a brief word with our sponsors, we'll walk through
the infamous last voyage of Amelia Earhart. On July two seven,
(14:40):
just twenty two days before her birthday, Amelia Earhart and
her navigator friend Fred Noonan vanished, partially through their attempt
at servant circumnavigating the globe. Um they vanished, we know this.
They vanaged somewhere between Lay, New Guinea and Howland Island,
(15:00):
and the Navy of the U. S. Navy searched Um,
the largest swath they'd ever searched for a missing person
and history at that point, and they found neither plane
nor crew. Then, on January of nineteen thirty nine, Amelia
Earhart was declared legally dead after being missing for eighteen months.
(15:24):
So what happened? Here's where it gets crazy. Theories on
the disappearance of Amelia Earhart have proliferated for almost a
century now. The official report concluded that Earhart and Noonan
were unable to land on their you know there planned
destination of Howland Island, and that while trying to find
(15:48):
this destination they ran out of fuel. They crashed into
the water and sank. But of course that sort of
explanation did very little to quell suspicion, especially because there
were no roomain means, a plane nor person to be found.
There are a couple of different theories that run counter
to the official narrative. One theory suggests that this is
(16:09):
the weirdest one, that Amelia Earhart actually didn't die. She's
not only survived, but she returned to the US. She
changed her name to Irene Bolom b O l A
M and lived a long, long life and obscurity. There
are actually some books written about this. But why To
one hand, it's strange, she unhappy and I want to
(16:33):
do what a weird name? To change her name to
blem No one suspects them right now, I guess not right,
that's true. It's very clear. I don't know, man, are you?
Are you potentially a missing aviator? No relation to feel
like how I didn't really answer your question that you know.
I love it when you do that. Actually, it's one
of my favorite things in the whole world. Um So
(16:54):
in a book by Joe Class from the sies, I'm
not quite sure exactly what came out called Amelia Earhart
lives Um. This gentleman makes the case that Earhart was
in fact captured Um and then taken to Saipan and
then to Tokyo, where she was a prisoner of the
Imperial Palace until nine. The theory argues that Earhart's Secret
(17:21):
was used as a bargaining ship after the war to
allow the Japanese Emperor to remain in power. What secret
has this been? The secret would be that they were
able that the Japanese government was using air Heart as
leverage to preserve the emperor's standing in the community post
World War Two. The idea here being that there was
(17:44):
a what's that term so popular nowadays, a bit of
a quid pro quo? Oh, yes, clarius, a bit of
a quick pro quo, and that, uh, you know, if
if the Allies allowed the emperor to retain the position
of the royal family, then air Heart would be returned
to the US. Of course, that doesn't explain the name change, right,
(18:05):
So bracket that we'll get back to that one. There's
another much more popular theory that we wanted to share
with you today. That's right. Another widely held belief is
that air Heart and noon In actually did touchdown on
a remote South Pacific island called Nico Maro Role. Okay
there in I thought he did great. I'm not a
native speaker and I'm not either, but we always try
(18:26):
to do our best. Um and this at the time
of their disappearance would have been uninhabited and was known
as Gardener Island. Um The Air Heart Project which is
a division of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
or TIGER h I G h A R. I still
think it's pronounced Tiger and it's an organization dedicated to
(18:48):
investigating this hypothesis. Um SO Tiger has been investigating the
island since n and they've collected a ton of intriguing
things related to the case. Uh improv tools, remains of shoes,
and aircraft wreckage parts, which is consistent with air hearts,
plane and an electra exactly. They also discovered that a
(19:13):
few years after Air Heart vanished, a British colonial officer
found the remains of a castaway on what was then
called Gardner Island, now known as Nico Mororo. The bones
were sent to Fiji for analysis, but ultimately they were
misplaced and lost. Let's fast forward to the future during
(19:34):
Tigers Tigers expedition, Their team found some of the most
compelling clues they had ever seen. They were looking around
in a spot where they had previously identified what was
likely the remains of a campfire, and they found three
pieces of a pocket knife. They found shells that have
(19:56):
been cut open, glass, cosmetic jar fragments, there little bits
of makeup, and bone fragments that they thought might be
from a human being. Um, let's let's put our skeptic
hats on because we're gonna talk a little bit about
a History Channel documentary. Did you hear about this one?
(20:17):
You know how a History Channel and a lot of
the cable TV channels have those investigative shows and sometimes
their top notch, very well researched, very honest, and other
times they're a little too George Sucalos, you know, saying
ancient aliens kind of stuff from Yeah, that's a frow
(20:38):
and more of just like a wild hair do. Let's
say it's a main Yeah, he's a he's a nice guy.
I've heard I like his I'd like his whole name.
In the hair situation, Sucalos fun to say, it's kind
a nice mouth field. Yeah, No, it's true. Um and
this one was of that variety. Now was it good? Well,
this is the question we leave to you and your
(20:59):
fellow listen is right. The name of the documentary was
Amelia Earhart The Lost Evidence, and it dives head first
into the theory that Noonan and Earhart were captured by
Japanese forces. In the documentary, there's a retired federal agent.
His name is Les Kenny and less. Kenny and his
team searched through records at the National Archives to find
(21:20):
any overlooked clues to the disappearance of Airheart. That's right.
He and his team found a photograph that was stamped
with official Office of Naval Intelligence marks that read Marshall Islands,
jalluis Atoll, Jallowe Island, Jallowe harbor Um and the photo
a ship can be seen that's towing a barge with
(21:42):
an airplane on the back of it, and then nearby
on a dock you can see several people and Kenny
argues the photo had to have been taking a four
N because the US Air Forces conducted more than thirty
bombing runs on Jallowe in nineteen forty three and forty four.
He believes are through that looks like a range of time,
(22:04):
so they did it quite frequently. He believes the plane
on the barge is the Electra and that the two
people are two of the people on the dock are
air Heart and noon In. And then we have a
way In also in the same documentary from Doug Karner
and Kent Gibson. These are forensic analysts, and Karner looked
(22:25):
at it and said, Okay, no one has messed with
this photo, meaning no one has altered it. It was
from that time and is legit. And then Kent Gibson
specializes in recognizing faces, and he says it's very likely
that the two individuals they point out on the dock
there are air Heart and noon And both of them
(22:49):
also say that the ship in the photo is a
Japanese vessel called the Koshu Maru, and they think this
is the ship that took air Heart at noon In
away after they survived that crash landing. If that is
you believe the television show, that's where we have our
skeptic hats on, you know what I mean, because we
(23:11):
have to ask ourselves not in any way being derogatory
toward the experts in the show, nor to the History
Channel or what have you. We have to ask ourselves
how much of this we believe? And it's it's a
good question. We have to ask ourselves how sincere or
how disingenuous some of these outfits can be. You know,
(23:33):
what was the name of the ship in question? The
Koshuo marooms had the same as the Kobayashiro Maru. That
is similar. I thought the same thing, but it is
not the unsolvable scenario and Star Trek training, isn't it though?
An unsolvable scenario? I'm sorry, I get it. Yeah, Amelia
(23:54):
air heard version. We could call it like fat Maru
the air heard Mauru, the old Coue mare. Remember bats Mauru?
That was always my favorite Sanrio character. Oh god, yeah,
barely bats Muru was it? Was he a penguin? I
can't remember. I don't know. Let's see, this is not important.
We're taking a little sidetrack here. Pat's Marou Peng with
(24:18):
four little spiky hairs coincidence. Always looks like he's in
the just the worst mood. He's easy, he's a little
cranky guy. He's you know, he's got dead eyes. He's
staring at you like like he wants to murder you
double down on that. Yes, weren't you finger waged by
the public? Was? I? I thought you were. I thought
(24:39):
somebody reached out and said something about how that they
didn't think it was very nice that you would Malayan
Kristen Dunst his eyes in that, well, I don't think
it's very nice that their anti dead eyes as someone
who has a pair of dead eyes themselves. Funny story. Again,
don't want to get derailed too much, but this is
worth describing. Um buddy of ours. You we we we
both know. His name is Connor Outlift. He's a comedian
(25:01):
with the operations in the Brigade. He made a podcast
called Dead Eyes because he auditioned for a Band of Brothers.
Remember that television sequel to Saving Private Ryan that Tom
Hanks has something to do with. He directed and he
was cast but then fired in the eleventh hour and
an agent made the horrible mistake of telling him. Mr
Hanks says, he decided you have dead eyes, and now
(25:25):
you're gonna and that now. He made a podcast series
about how he wants to like track down Tom Hanks
and get to the bottom of this whole dead Eyes situation.
So you can check that out. It's on, it's on
the interwebs. It's to be fair to Kirsten Dudds, who
is I think a great actor. Uh, I'm particularly doubling
down on her role in Interview with a Vampire, not
(25:48):
her fantastic turn in that series of cheerleader movies. Do
you remember those? Was it Bring it On? Bring it On?
Bring it On? It was great. Stomp the Yard, now
that that was That was another one, right, it was
more of a stomp movie. It was in that same
time time. There were a lot of uh, what is
it bringing on? So she just said, no, there's another
(26:09):
one though. You got served. That's right where it's like
I'm gonna dance up on you remember South Park made
fund of that. It's so funny. Then I was just
briefly scrolling through Instagram and our friends over on ladylike
posted today this maybe it's gonna be pressing it for
the story. A headline from back in these days. Amelia
Earhart weds G. P. Putnam, but Atlantic Flyer will remain
(26:31):
miss air Heart for business purposes and writing exactly. Yeah,
this was this was a huge, huge deal. This is
one of the most famous people on the planet. No smoke,
no hyperbole. So it's it's no wonder that there was
such an extensive, expensive search for these missing aviators, and
(26:52):
it's also no wonder that the media became obsessed with it.
It's correct, it's absolutely correct to be particle of the
television show. Again, we're not saying it's not true. We're
not saying it's manipulative. We're just saying, be aware of
be aware of the motives behind some of those sorts
of programs. Anyhow, there are other things that add tantalizing
(27:16):
bits to the cauldron of conspiracy here. One is that
a number of the residents of Marshall Islands claimed they
witnessed the aviator's land there, and the Marshall Islands issued
stamps commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the air Heart flight,
and the stamps show air Hearts plane crash landing at
milly A Toll and the recovery of that plane by
(27:40):
the Koshu Maru. This leads to way quiet. Okay, so
this is a lot of fun as a thought exercise
to say, what if the people on the plane survived
the plane crash just difficult thing to do, And what
if Japanese forces took them captive. The big question is
why on Earth would they take her captive. We'll tell
(28:03):
you after a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
So people who believe this theory don't believe that the
Japanese forces were just you know, randomly capturing people for funzies.
(28:23):
And they don't think that they captured air Hearts specifically
because she was a celebrity. No. You see, people who
believe in this UH post crash survival abduction scenario also
believed that Amelia Earhart was a spy was working as
a secret agent for Uncle Sam. Partially this is based
(28:45):
on the fact that she did have a documented close
with friendship with Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt.
And folks who believe this theory tend to suggest that
the plane crashed after the pilots veered off course in
order to UH pursue a spying mission over japan occupied
(29:06):
islands in the Pacific, right. And the thing about that
is it feels plausible because they're in the right place.
They have a great cover, you know what I mean,
They can always fly over smilings and then just say
that they got lost right, and this is this is
(29:27):
fascinating to me because we have seen accusations similar to
this kind of thing happened before in the world of espionage.
As a matter of fact, a few years back, there
were three uh three Western students arrested in Iran because
they had apparently crossed over the border. They were arrested
as spies. They were all in their early twenties and
(29:48):
they're ostensibly they were just hikers with a very bad
sense of direction. And that story kind of disappeared from
the news, but it is it is an excellent cover story.
Just say, well, whoops, we were you know, we were
in the air for so long. We just got a
wool mix up. Yeah, it doesn't really quite add up.
(30:09):
It's a little yeah. It's one of those things where
you kind of just sucking air between your teeth and
go right, maybe my teeth are cold sensitive. I can't
suck air between my teeth like, oh man, I know
it hurts me right to the core of my root.
Well probably the yeah, the root of your dental roots.
It probably. It probably makes you seem like a nicer
(30:29):
person because you don't have that expression in your non
verbal vocabulary. I do this though, suck my teeth. Yeah, yeah,
I remember a few years back one of my friend
groups literally banned me for suspended me for a while
from saying tut tut. That's very tight, man. And then
I just they're describing things. It's tout. Just one tut
(30:52):
is is a little less egregious, I would, I would argue, yeah, yeah, well,
also it's a it's a little more dismissive. It's callab something.
Tout means you don't have time for both touts. Oh dang,
you're right because to scolding, but tut is almost like, yeah,
you're a real sucker. I don't even have time for
the second time for you. And I've actually been able
to propagate that way. That's weird. I use it. Everybody
(31:14):
knows what we mean when we say it, and every
time I just once, you know, then every time I
use it under my breath, I give you credit. Thank
you very well. That's that must be an interesting conversation
for people. And this so this is strange though it's
it's plausible, No, it's possible. It is plausible that spycraft
will be conducted that way, but it's a little bit
(31:36):
of a leap to say it was definitely air Heart.
The story, however, does not end there. We mentioned those, uh,
the British forces that found those thirteen bones, including a
skull on the island. They sent a telegram after the discovery.
That's back in the forties and they said it was
possibly the skull of Amelia Earhart, but doctors who examined
it at the time said it belonged to a short
(31:58):
European male. Even now some people disagree with this assessment.
But here's the question. If the thirteen bones they found
did in fact belong to Amelia Earhart, what happened to
all the other bones in a human skeleton? Where did
they go? There's a weird theory. It's that giant coconut
(32:18):
crabs consumed the flesh and carried away the bones. And
coconut crabs actually do that kind of thing. Have you
seen a coconut crab? Did we not talk about them
in the Cryptid sequel episode? And they were mistaken because
they're so bonkers looking, they're gigantic. First of all, these
creatures are crazy looking. Yeah, we again, I forgive us
(32:42):
if this is redundant, but um, they look like something
of like a face hugger, uh meets a lobster meets
a crayfish meets a crab um and they're they're heavily
armored and the limbs are all kinds of cuthoul who ask,
And they can crack coconuts. They just wrapped their weird
you know, kitanous arms, what do you call them limbs
(33:04):
around these coconuts and they can crack them right open,
and as we all know, that's a it's a hell
of a job. Yeah, absolutely this. They look like the
hybrid of a lobster and crab that also took a
lot of steroids. They look like the Arthur pod that's
been juicing. And what we found is that they are
capable of moving bones, so they could have taken those
(33:29):
other one three bones in the human skeleton and moved
it around. But at this point we have to pause
and ask ourselves what is the most likely sequence of
events here? Well, remember the Amelia Earhart lives guy Class.
It turns out there is a real Irene Bolom and
(33:51):
she was super not cool with being accused of being
Amelia Earhart. She sued Class as publishers for one point
five million dollars and said, I'm not Amelia Earhart. I've
got pictures from of myself from the thirties that prove it.
Stop bugging me and pull this book from publication. She
holding up newspapers of the day. That's I mean, come on,
(34:13):
that's the only thing that's gonna take to convince me.
You gotta hold up a newspaper. That's the only thing
that checks out. The only thing we have another. We
have another series of developments here. Dr Aaron Kimberley, the
researcher at the University of South Florida, was recently asked
to examine some of those bones that have been rediscovered
at a museum on this island, Nico Mororo, to see
(34:36):
if they might be Airheart's actual bones, because, as we
said before, they had been examined in the past, but
they mysteriously disappeared in Fiji, and now experts are thinking
the bones have been found again at a museum and
cultural center in Kiabatti. The bones were stored in this
large box with their several sets of different remains that
(34:59):
all stored together. One set was female and matched ear
Hearts rough description as we record now just this year,
just just a little while ago, these bones were sent
for DNA testing, and the plan is to compare the
DNA from the bones against the DNA of air hearts
one living niece. So while the mystery remains for now,
(35:22):
we're closer to a solid answer than we've ever been before. Wait,
so this is ongoing, This is like the tests are
in the mail. Yeah, like October of that's pretty cool.
When are we gonna hear We don't know, you know,
it's weird because we we get these uh close calls,
these tantalizing brushes with answers in DNA cases all the time,
(35:45):
Like there was one involving the Zodiac Killer that was
you know, the team we worked very closely with. It
does the Monster Zodiac series. We're really hoping it was
going to be a big scoop at the end of
the of the series and it did not pan out.
If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, absolutely, or we're still waiting
and this is another waiting game. That's where we'll leave
it today. But we want to hear from you. This
(36:08):
concludes our episode, but not our show. Let us know
what you think happened to Amelia Earhart. Do you think
that there's enough evidence to prove that either she or
noon In or both of them survived for a time
after the plane crash. Do you think it's just a
case where humanity likes a good story and a good mystery.
(36:28):
What do you think the DNA will find? Were they
secret lovers? Where they secret lovers? Were they secret spies?
Also a question? Let us know. You can find us
on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram. You can
find us on Twitter where we are conspiracy Stuff, Conspiracy
Stuff Show, or some combination of the two. You can
also find us as individuals on the internets. Yes, I
(36:49):
am at how Now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram, and
I am on Instagram as at Ben Bolan Creative. I
know that handle is my Magna mopus. I'm also on
Twitter as Ben Bowen h s W. If you say, guys,
I have something really important to tell you, but I
don't like the social needs we of all people get it,
(37:13):
you can call us directly. That's right. We have a hotline,
the hottest of lines where you can reach us at
one eight three three s T d W y T
k UM. You can call with a friend and speak
as one voice. That's in unison. I'd be impressed if
he did that, especially if you didn't write it down beforehand,
(37:35):
just mind melt like we do. Yeah, the improv one
voice game always a winter And let's be honest, you're
going to be the first person to hear you will
be Matt Frederick. So be kind because we like you
hold him dear to our hearts. And now, I mean
he is a he's a real glutton for punishment with these.
He has notifications turned on. So the moment that you
call in be at three in the morning our time,
(37:56):
he gets that doorbell sound effect that you hear at
the beginning of the show, or you might even be
hearing now, uh, and that that wakes him up, and
he listens to your message, transcribes them, cuts them up
into delectable bites, and then I'm not none of that's true.
But he is the first line of defense when it
comes to these. And whenever you hear us do one
of those calling episodes, typically it's because Matt has curated
the best and brightest of your messages. So if you
(38:18):
want to be part of that crew, do us a
solid and leave us a messages, do us another solid.
Read it's a kind review on your podcast platform of choice,
preferably Apple podcasts if you wish, we would very much
appreciate him. And if you don't want to do any
of that, which we hope, we hope you will. But
if you don't want to do any of you just
want to do some of it. Uh, you can also
do one more thing, and that's send us a good
old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at i heart
(38:39):
radio dot com stuff they don't want you to know,
(39:00):
as a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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