Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

## Overview and History

The **Disappearance of Amelia Earhart** refers to an incident that occurred on July 2, 1937, involving famed American aviator Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. On an attempt to completely circumnavigate the globe in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra airplane (actually the second attempt at such a flight, the first of which occurred in March of that year and ended due to plane damage), the two aviators departed Lae Airfield in Papua New Guinea for their intended destination of Howland Island, only 7,000 miles being left in the flight.

As Earhart and Noonan approached Howland Island, they began to have trouble with various navigational instruments, specifically the radio and direction finder. The USCGC *Itasca*, a cutter ship stationed at Howland to help the pilots navigate to the landing point, began to receive static-filled radio transmissions from Earhart alerting them that she and Noonan were running out of fuel but still couldn't locate the ship. Her last known transmissions indicated that the two pilots had potentially veered off course by approximately five nautical miles and not even the *Itasca's* smoke signals were visible enough in the cloudy weather. Numerous operators within dozens of miles attempted to contact the aircraft, but Earhart and Noonan were never seen again.

## Interpretations

Exactly what happened to Earhart and Noonan has been the subject of debate for decades. Most historians hold to the "crash and sink" theory, which says that they simply ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.

Others have suggested that the two pilots, having realized that their chances of finding Howland Island were slim to none, would have instead began searching for other islands on which to land. The most common suggestion is Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro. Search efforts concentrated on Gardner have actually discovered signs of human activity as well as the wreck of the SS *Norwich City*, but they found no conclusive proof that Earhart and Noonan successfully arrived. A human skeleton was found in September of 1940 on Gardner that at first was thought to be that of Amelia, but it was later determined that the bones were that of a male (although this conclusion is controversial).

The third most popular hypothesis is that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese, a suggestion held by many of Earhart's relatives. Several alleged photos of Amelia in Japan have surfaced over the years, particularly one in the National Archives made popular by the 2017 History Channel documentary *Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence*. However, it was later discovered that the photograph originated in a 1935 Japanese travel guide.

## Popular Culture

### Video Games

* In the 2003 video game *The Simpsons: Hit & Run*, specifically in the mission "The Fat and Furious", Mr. Burns will remark "Fine, I'll admit it. I had Amelia Earhart's plane shot down. That hussy was getting too big for her jodhpurs."

## Sources

1. ↑ https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/amelia-earhart-disappears
2. ↑ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/19/amelia-earhart-found-disappearance-theories/1475518001/
3. ↑ https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/11/536620463/japanese-blogger-points-out-timeline-flaw-in-supposed-earhart-photo