Thinking Sideways: The disappearance of Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan

so we're gonna talk about a really fun mystery this week. Um, we're going to talk about Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and what happened to them possibly maybe there. Yeah, So I'm sure you've heard about Amelia, but if just in case you haven't, I'll just give you a brief rundown. She was an early female pioneer of aviation, and and she flew across the Atlantic for example, I think the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. And she was on I once you disappeared, she was on a round

the world flight. She would have been the first woman. Yeah, I like, you just sound very unimpressed, Like I guess she was. I don't know if she was important female figure history. Probably what she was trying to do is that we're trying to give just a real brief because there's so much to the story. I think it's probably on your kid. Yeah, yeah, I mean if you go to a wiki page, you can read all about her life, so by all means to do that if you want to.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh. And also Fred and Inden was her navigator. He was considered one of the best navigators around. And uh. He was also a licensed ship captain, had a ton of experience with marine and then flight navigation. Excuse me, what's that is? Maybe? Oh that's true. You might still be alive. Yeah, okay, sorry about that. Uh. And yeah, and the alien Fred, if you're out there listening, drop us a postcard. Souse, I know. Anyway.

On July nineteen thirty seven, Heat and Amelia were heading out over the Pacific Ocean on their third to the last leg of their round the World trip. Yeah, and they're going to try to find a tiny little piece of land called Howland Island. Um, you can find it on Google if you want. Well, I mean, probably go any further. I want to acknowledge that this was suggested by a couple of people, Ash and also Jeremy Right, so thanks guys. A long time ago, ye, quite a while. Yeah, yeah,

one of our first suggestions, I think. Yeah, well, okay, the round world. The Round the World trip began in Oakland, California, went eastward in ninety seven. People had already flown around the world, so Amelia decided to set herself apart by following an extra long twenty thousand mile equatorial route and also being female and also that too. Yeah. Yeah. She got financing for Purdy University and Lockeed Aircraft built her a custom lock heat Electric ten airplane, which yatom mean.

But on the other hand, like, don't you want the model that's been tested? Yeah, you never, you never use first use. I'm not sure how long the lock the elector had been around at that time. Well, but even if you just add an extra fuel tank, you want one that's been around a couple of times. Yeah, that's my rule at least. Yeah, so, yeah, the extra big fuel tank was one thing. But but what strikes me as strange about this is that they didn't incorporate a

navigation dome. What's a navigation dome? Because in the old days, before they had all this fancy stuff, that we had these days. You had to use a sextant and like like when you're flying at night, actually get a fix on a star skylight on the top of the plane. Basically bubbles like I have a sperit glass bubble that they built into the tops of a lot of planes back in those days. And why they didn't build one into this plane, I don't know, but it would have

been a good idea for fun. I think because they were they were relying on the technology they had of the new radios and stuff like that they thought. I don't think they felt like they needed first Yeah. Yeah, it seems like they were going to use radio direction finding technology in this particular little thing of Amelia's, but it didn't really work out too well. Was there is there some consideration for aerodynamics as well? Like were they

trying to make the plane more aerodynamic? It's conceivable, I don't know, to extend the fuel life. Yeah, I don't think that's a good question. Yeah, the first try this this actually was her second try at around the world thing. Yeah, she tried one time before and she flew from Oakland to Honolulu successfully and yeah, so that means that she was flying east to West instead of what she ended up doing in the end, which was flying yeah, exhausting east. Yeah,

in halleluluh. She was taking off her second leg and she had an unfortunate incident. There's still a little controversial. She ground loops essentially, which meant that on takeoff, one wingtip caught the ground and she just sort of spun around and did a huge amount of damage to her plane. Did it? Did it spin around? Always got the impression that the ground loop is where one hits and then

you know, it's the equal and opposite reaction. It pushes it the other way, and so they waggle back and forth, because you've seen plane. I've seen planes doing that when they're taking off and they'll they kind of one tip then the other wing tip back and forth on their central accesses. No, it's actually it's defined as a rapid rotation of a plane and in the horizontal plane. Oh yeah, So my impression is it's like one wing gets caught

basically pivots. Yeah, okay, okay, that's then that's where I misunderstood it. Yeah. Anyway, the plane was severely damaged. It had to be shoot back to California to be fixed and Uh, and it's controversial. I mean, I mean a lot of damage. Yeah, Amelia claimed that her right tire blue out, which may or may not be true, and other people who blame pilot error. So there, she's controversial, and it might there might be a certain amount of bias with some of these people who said that she

was not so hot of a pilot after all. But it's a lot of problems with the stories that people are holding back because either they think she because she was a woman, she wasn't a good pilot, or because she was a one woman pilot, they don't want to point out any of her flaws and her ability. Yeah, it's a weird it's a weird catch twenty two. Yeah,

it kind of is. Oh. And also there was some mention in the story at the end of nineteen thirty seven that supposedly Fred Noonan told his wife he had just recently remarried, told her about the blowout, if it was a blowout, that he didn't think it was an accident, he thought it was sabotage. Yeah, but I'll talk about I'll talk a little bit more about this article. It was in True magazine. I think that's probably what should

not be called it's a pretty liberal article. Yeah, okay, anyway back to the second one, back to our trip. The second of her second attempt, second try, they leave Local for Miami, and then at Miami they made the faithful decision to remove their trailing antenna, which really might have saved their bacon later, Joe, what's the trailing in? I'll just do that for this entire episode. Yeah, I was.

I was going to explain that a trailing antenna is something that you in those days at least, antenna's were less sophisticated, so generally speaking, and I'm not an expert on radios at all, but my understanding of this is that in order to broadcast on the five Killer Hurts band, which is a marine distress band, I think you have to have it. You have to have an antenna of a certain length, and would be too much a longer antenna than you can actually accommodate inside or mounted on

the fuselage of it. So it's gotta be longer. So what you do is it's a it's a long and wire antenna with a lead weight on the end, and then you toss it out now you know, you deploy it out the window exactly fuselage on the back and then it's got to the bridge. Yeah. Yeah, and so you after you take off, you deploy it, and then before you land you better remember to reel it back in. Why what would be the reason that one would disconnect that.

It seems like it's a innocuous thing. Yeah, apparently U I guess they felt it was just too much of a nuisance to have to reel it in every time you land the plane. So why not just not not deploy it? Yeah that question. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's a tremendously heavy thing. Yeah, it's not like weighing

them down a hole. Probably got it's probably a couple of pounds total in weight, So yeah, just don't eat a couple of meals maybe and you're well, it's probably more than a couple of pounds for the electric winch and everything else. But you know, still it wasn't that much. And uh, it's a little explicable. You know for me, I would want to have everything. Yeah, I just want to have that extra radio, you know, just in case

when you where the radios goes out. And you know, part of the big part of the problem with this whole thing, for Amelia and Fred is that the radio wasn't quite working right and that kind of hosed them in the end. Yeah, and uh, just a brief mention here. They were talking before they hired brought Fred onto the project. They were talking to another navigator whose name was Bradford Washburn, and they asked him. That was Amelia and her husband were asking him, well, we we want to go from

New Guinea to Howland Island. It's going to be really tough to find. What what do you think we need to do? And he said, you have to have a trailing antenna and and then for communications, and you have to have a radio operator on the island. Amelia didn't want to go with the trailing antenna and so he backed out. Smart dude. Yeah for him, I'm sure he

was patting himself on the back. I mean, he probably wasn't happy about it, but you know, still the so the jump from le from La Papua, New Guinea, it's a town on the east east coast of Papua New Guinea. As I said, the third to last leg, it was expected to take at least eighteen twenty hours and the Elector was capable of flying twenty four hours under a deal conditions if the tanks were full, and I've heard

varying accounts of this. Most say that the tanks were full when they left Lay, but I've also seen a few other accounts that stay that, No, she only had about nine fifty gallons of gas. Well, how much was

the tank? Sorry, thank I've heard varying spent that. Yeah, eleven, we're there, Yeah, yeah, But apparently they there was a grass airstrip at Lai and it was it was only three thousand feet long, and apparently, according to some authorities that have heard, she couldn't take off with much more weight than she had, and they actually offloaded a bunch of weight just so they could make up make it up with fuel, so they took some stuff off at Law.

The Navy was cooperating with the mission. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca was stationed at Hellan Island, and also the tug the USS Ontario was stationed midway between Lay and Howland, and then the USS Swan was stationed beyond Hollan Island to the east. So the Navy was plane of ships form to be able to communicate with as they got close. When they got there and if they were shot, somebody still talk to them, yeah, or go rescue them if they had a ditch or something like that. Of the navy.

That was awfully nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was an overnight flight. It was scheduled to arrive at helln Island early in the morning of July two. So they left July second, they arrived July second. That's international dateline. Oh yeah, right, okay, yeah, And so they left at ten am, which is zero Granwich mean time, and so all the times I'm going to be giving from here on in our Granwich mean time because when I don't know if you guys noticed,

as when you researched, it was, oh, it's screw. It's really hard because there's half hour time zones over there and they're they're talking local time at La local time at Howland and and then they're mixing it in with Granwich mean time and oh my god, it's confused. So actually this is interesting. My brother is I'm currently in New Zealand working and so they are three hours behind us,

but they in tomorrow. Yeah, so it's very interesting trying to have, you know, skype conversation with him because it's like I don't I literally cannot conceptualize of what time it is there for you because it's just it seems like it's in the future. So I you know it is in the future. Well, I kind of had this same thing happening with this, you know, because it was kind of like, I don't know, I can't get a

good beat on it. So good on the Greenwich meantime that we're just going to do it all in one keep simple, let's do it. Yeah, Okay, back to Holland Island. So the morning that Amelia and Fred were do in at Holland Island, the Ataska reported weather conditions as clear blue sky to the south and the east, but heavy cloud banks to the north and the west. And the

Ataska is the one that was at the island. That was at the island, yeah, and so yeah, so yeah, so not the ideal weather conditions for finding a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. And so the plane was flying towards the cloud banks, that's flying through them. Yeah,

they were to the west of Hallan Island. There were a very decent number of radio messages, but I'm not going to list them all between there were a lot, but that when they were getting close to Holland at seventy seven g m t Amelia radio were two hundred miles out. Please take a bearing on her signal, And she started whistling into the microphone and that so that it would be a tone for him to to track, right, Yeah,

just just a steady noise for the track. And the thing about it is is they replied to her, but they never got an acknowledgement of the message. And then in fact, they never got acknowledgments of any of their messages to her over the radio. Shouldn't indicates to me her receiver was not working. That's it's widely believed that there was receiver antend had gotten damaged on takeoff. So about this time the Ataska fired up its oil burners and generated a big column of black smoke. Oh that's

a good idea. Yeah, yeah, the commander of the ship said later that should have been visible for forty plus miles to the south and east. Uh. And if if Amelia was flying at one thousand feet, which she said she was, well, but I've also heard that if she was coming from slightly you know, I think it was a slightly different direction, it could have very easily blended in with the clouds depending on where she was. You know, it's funny. I looked up this this ship and I

was like, it's got guns. Why the hell weren't they just fired off shots to make a bunch of noises. She can home in on that that's not a bad idea. Didn't have guns at that time, Oh it didn't. Didn't got fitted for guns for or two is when I figured out they will, like what happens when it's the errant shot and you shoot the plane rain? You shoot blank? You don't? Yeah, I'm not sure miles away and with two really loud aircraft engines, you know, right next to

your true Yeah. So I actually have one quick question before we move on from this. It was documented that Amelia did have like the kind of training right that she would know you have to respond when people radio you, right, And there was documented that she had done that in the past. Rights. I just wanted to make sure. I mean, you know, there's so much talk about her maybe not being a great pilot and blah blah blah. I mean, I would think that everybody would know if somebody radio's you,

you at least acknowledge that you got it. But it occurs to me that maybe she just didn't know that, but I was, so I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, well, she was accused of not following correct procedures radio procedures later on, but I just wanted to make sure, so if we're going forward with this that it's that it does seem reasonable that she wasn't actually receiving the calls, not that she was just choosing to not respond. Yeah. Yeah.

The other thing that I know of is in reading, is because this radio system was different than what she was used to and she want to count it. I read it was like she got like a half hour of training on it. At it's lucky. Is that who made us? Yeah? They when she was picking up, they gave her a half hour walk through how the radio worked. Wasn't right. She may not have been known how to

identify that or correct for it. Yeah, it was like her radio direction finder, I think, is the one that she got just a really quick overview on and that was it. Yeah. Well, so when I guess it's also possible she wasn't totally clear on how it worked and she made a thought she was hitting the button the right way, or was holding her head the right way, and she wasn't, and nobody's saying to her like, hey,

did you hear what we were saying? Her headphones were unplugged the whole time, and she had no idea the mixer was off. Yeah, yeah, Okay, so all right, sorry, let's back to back to what the commander said. He said that he was it was doubtful that the smoke would have been visible for more than twenty miles to the north and west, which is where she was coming from. Okay, back to the messages. GMT. She radio said they were

a hundred miles out and low on gas. Uh and along about this time, her voice was starting to get a little, a little bit of an edge in it, I hear, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah, but this is this is the part that I find a little inexplicable, is why it was. You know, she must not have been getting any messages from the Ataska or anybody else. So at that point, don't you conclude that your receiver was busted and turn around and go back to light.

Isn't that what not? If you're running low on she's been how far out of well no, no, no, I'm not saying this way. She must have known earlier in the flight, well, you know, well before the halfway point and her receiver wasn't working. How could you not deduce the receiver? Do we know? Was there a storm, any kind of interference that could have knocked him out on midflight,

So they wouldn't have known that they weren't receiving. So sadly they didn't find out that they weren't receiving until not possible, until they suddenly weren't receiving from the ship and they were like, well, we are too far now to turn around, so we're just going to have to go pointing in return. Yeah. Yeah, it could have been.

It could have been maybe they got struck by lightning or something like that, or even I mean, I don't know, like maybe a duck hit it or something, you know, yeah, something like that, you know, But I mean that is that is that a reasonable thing to sit with. The prevailing theory is that it was damaged on takeoff and it wouldn't have been working the entire flight, so they should have figured something out, like when they were communicating with the tower and not hearing the tower in Papua

New Guinea responding to them again. Yeah, I mean so yeah, but anyway, for whatever reason, they just they turned on. I think that maybe they figured that they could they be able to find this place, you know, and certainly if the weather had been better, you know, weather didn't help at all. They had a head wind for one thing. Uh So back to the messages here, they got their last message message on the Ataska am T. She said that they were on on a line I think it

was line of position slash three thirty seven. Can you explain what that means? I'm still not positive that I understand. Yeah, I definitely don't understand. What is what are those numbers? So lattitude and longitude? No, no, no, that's uh you know you know that you know that's in a in a circulars three D and sixty degrees right, so yeah, all right, exactly, And so zero on that circle is is north? How do an eighty greeze is south? So one degrees is like south southeast? Okay, okay, So I've

never done bearings like That's why I was. I was a little confused. So there, so they're south southeast what yeah? So south is south southeast? Is between south and southeast right now, I know, But it's and then they can't give their position. Three seven is just the opposite like north northwest. Oh, so she was either going south southe so that's the thing. She didn't say what direction on

that line that they were going. Oh they were all, oh I see, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, And so it's it's so it's believed that what what fred Knud had done was what he was going to do is get them out there, take a bearing off off the sun, or however we could get a bearing presumable with the sun and determine their longitude. So if if they're at the correct longitude for the island, for Allen Island, then they make they make a right turn and head down that line to hit the island. But you know, so

that's that's theoretically what he was doing. I see, okay, yeah, so I assumed that they were running south on that line, but we actually don't know. She didn't say. And actually, and they may frankly, they may not have really known either, right, No, they would have known, but they wouldn't know which direction they were going. But but you know, we just had no way of knowing if they were going north on that line. Of course, they would have known. I'm sorry,

I don't know, I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm I'm being a dummy. Okay. So, and that was the correct longitude for the island latitude longitude. It appears not because they never showed up. So she also said at the end of that message said she was switched switching to sixty different frequency. The Taska radio back telling her not to change her frequency, but apparently she did anyway, because that's the last they ever heard of her. Did she did they switch frequencies. I don't know why they

couldn't just switch over to sixty two ten. Really, I'm not sure have had the radio. They may not have that might have and part of the problem, I mean, I guess it was radio is back in those days were a lot more crude, although very narrow bandwidths. Yeah, I guess. For me, my initial reaction is always like she was in a small plane, like they had a giant naval ship. Really the radio on her plane was

more sophisticated than there's. But again, you're right, you're making good was not new at that time, but it's you know, and so it may have gotten the latest radio technology ten years prior. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, So it's a good point that you guys are bring up, because it is totally my impulse to be like, what do you mean her plane was more advanced than a giant battleship. You're right, I'm not really sure what the issue was there.

You know, you would think that they would have the capability of operating on a bunch of different frequencies, including that one, that it might be that their radio was busted or I was old certain frequencies are only used in certain areas, you know, on land versus sea, stuff like that. So I I mean, I'm I'm completely ignorant here, and yeah, we're gonna get a lot of hate mail from ham Ham radio operators. Yeah, I know, I know.

But actually there were three more messages. I mean twenty GMT is the one that's always listed as the last one, but I read that. Actually the radio operator at NARU was was back the halfway point on that that island on did hear three more messages at and g MT within the span of about a half hour. Yeah, and what must happened, Well, I don't know what the contents were.

I've never been able to find that, but he did send a telegram that was eventually made it to the Coast Guard about the messages, and he he mentioned the last message. He said that the last message sounded just like the person in the previous messages, but that the person was shouting and the sound of the airplane's engines, which had been present previous messages, was gone. So i'd probably yeah, a lot of things. So that is that is what we know about about Amelia. That's the last

we heard of her. Um. Then there's a lot of theories out there, and they started almost immediately. Of course, she was she was a very public figure and she was doing a very public thing. Yeah you know you were calling. I mentioned that article in True Magazine. Yeah, okay, tu, Yeah, that's that's one of the first theories that came at us, that they were assassinated. Yeah. So that was in the

December nineteen thirties seven issue of True Magazine. Uh claimed that Amelia and Fred were spying for the US government. We're in theory section, by the way, Oh yeah, we are in the theory section. Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Yeah. Uh. This article notes that it was very risky to make the hop to Howland Island and it would have made more sense to travel around the Pacific room like say Japan the Illusian Seattle, if you ignore completely what they

were doing. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, well she wanted to do the whole equatorial thing first of all. Yeah. Now, but still, you know they did. There's a good point. I mean, how trying to find Hollan Island in the middle of a vast ocean was kind of risky and uh so obviously they were they were suspicious of True magazine and why they took this very risky route. Uh And the answer they believed was that they had something

in their possession that they didn't want the Japanese to see. Yeah, apparently they've been doing a lot of spy on their round the World trip, and they had a lot of a lot of top secret info that needed to be delivered to the U. S. Government, like in the form of like developed pictures. Is that what they're saying? Who knows? You know? Uh, yeah, yeah, I guess it has to

be undeveloped. But that's but that's my argument against this theory, because it's like, well, but if it's undeveloped film, then they can say, yeah, we've been taking pictures of our world record journey. Yeah, why do you have eight rolls of films trip? Okay, a lot of water to go to the bathroom and take like twelve selfies. I don't know what you want from me. Okay, yea. Why the

pictures all of like military installations? I don't know. It all looks like military installations from a thousand feet Yeah,

that's true. Anyway, somebody, presumably the Japanese government, didn't want all that all that good data delivered to the US government, so they used radio interference to make the direction finding gear on the airplane and the task are useless, and to mess with the air mess with their audio also, and the evidence for this as well, the U S Government did participate in an Amelia Earhart's trip well station in those three ships and everything. Um that's about it

for evidence. Um yeah, okay, yeah, we let's just ignore the fact that she was friends with the current first Lady at that time, you know who she is in her connections had nothing to do with her being able to arrange all of that. No, no, yeah, well, but I mean also it's not it's not my impression, correct me if I'm wrong that these naval ships were usually stationed in New York and made a huge transatlantic journey all the way over to this like a little area

to be stationed in these areas. They were kind of like stationed in that general vicinity. Anyway, it was a short jog for them to just go plant themselves a hundred miles from where they usually were. I don't know if they were stationed in the Philippines or you know, I Harbor, right, But it's not that it's not like they sailed halfway around the world yet. And you know, again, it's like kind of an exciting thing for the people who are on the ship, right, all of the Marines,

navy men, navy men. Sorry maybe I didn't actually say this, but actually two of them were Navy ships, but the Ataska was a coast guard cutter. So anyways, for the men that were stationed on the ships, you know, it's something interesting for them. It's helping an American citizen achieve a world record. You know, it's the famous American America. Yeah, I mean we do stuff like that all the time already, still right, totally, so yeah, I mean it's not suspicious.

So of course, this argument or this article is they did make a mention of Fred Noonan saying to his wife supposedly that they've been sabotaged in Honolulu when they when they ground looped. When did that article come out again? December nineteen seven? And is that article the first mention of Fred Noonan's concern over Amelia's or over sabotage? Is that where it came from? Probably that's the first that I as first that I know, Yeah, I've never seen it.

I've never seen it dated prior to that. Now that I think about it's like, I wonder if we've discovered

where the source of it is, you wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, yeah, now this is uh, this might be the first the source for all the spying allegations and everything to you know, it could be another another source was there was a movie that came out in I think nineteen forty three that was kind of loosely based on Yeah, this one was and this one she was spying for the U. S. Government And that sort of helped to put that whole we were they were spying thing into the population. So

where where are we saying they were spying? I mean like where along the equator? That's like very tactical at that point. Yeah, exactly. I mean the area that they disappeared in, it's there in the in the Pacific. There were islands that were under Japanese control at that time. But that's really the only thing. I mean, it's not like they would have gone to let's say, Germany is the first one that pops into mind. That's way out

of the way. I mean, nobody major pops up as somebody that I would say you would need to be spying on, I would just say, like again, as a counter to that, not that any of us in this room, like actually believe this, but I just really want to We're at home, right. Uh. That's a really popular in the public eye long way to go about spying on tiny little islands that aren't really tactically relevant. Yeah. Yeah,

I mean they were. But but if you're gonna have somebody's spy, why would you be like Amelia Earhart is going for the world record of this thing. Everybody know this is exactly a story. You ever, this is exactly the way that she's going. So if you want to shoot her down, you know her course, why would you do that? Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just throw somebody in the air and have them go for it, throw somebody in the air. Yeah, said that,

you're right. Yeah, So look, I guess we can say that the assassination theory was a fail. Yeah. And then another one that's out to this popular. And there's a lot. I didn't even even incorporate every single theory. There's just where there's so many. It's just it's just they're kind of grouped in generalities here. A lot of them are very similar to one another two And Joe's not Devin, so he didn't do the bullet point way. Yeah, which is why it's really easy for me to understand. Continue

on our next theory. They crashed on Saipan and were eventually killed by the Japanese. So that was another island

that was under Japanese control at that time. And somebody has dug up quotes from locals in Saipan who supposedly saw two white people, a man and a woman, one woman who was a girl, all the times that you saw a silver twin engine plane flying low over the island, hit some trees and then crash land on the beach, and then she got to look at the two people from the wreck and they were white, and the woman she described as tall and thin with short hair, just

like Amelia Earhart did either of your Actually this is a little off topic, but I found it interesting. It's just when you were talking about having short hair. I never realized why she had her hair cut in the style that she did. Did you did you guys find that in the reading. You can't have long hair when you're flying an airplane because you can't get it all underneath a cap easily, and so then of course it would be tangled and would break off anyway over hours

and hours and hours of flight time. So it was a giant pain in the butt, which is why she adopted the short hairstyle. It's also kind of a hazard if you're like checking engines that are going yeah, yeah, oh yeah. This is like, you know, don't have long loose clothes on when I'm working. Yeah. Maybe if you have to bail out of your plane, it gets tangling in your shoot and your shot doesn't deploy her. There's a jillion reasons why, but I yeah, because you've never

had to think about it. I did once. I had long hair once. I just mean as a man, as a bald man, just as a man once as a man had long hair, it was a man. Can we continue on, Yeah, okay, leaving my hair. So what's the problem with this theory, Well, Sipan is due north of lie Yeah, that's a pretty that's a real, real gigantic

navigational error. Even I wouldn't make that error problem. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Lieutenant Governor of Saipan said in an interview on this topic, said that reporters were coming to the island and offering people money to say that they had seen two white people, and in ninety seven there were white people living on Saipan. Somebody could in good conscience take the money and say, yeah, sure, I saw two white people. I saw some whole bunch of Yeah, yeah, I gotta get this one of ale

I would I would totally agree with that. Okay, this uh, this one is kind of a variant that actually has them wind up in Saipan after all. In fact, several of these have been wanting ups in Sapan for miscellanous reasons. But this theory is that they took a detail over the Marshall Islands to do some spying for the government and were shot down by the Japanese. The Japanese were occupying the Marshall Islands, and that's to the north of where all of our Amelia air heart action is going on.

Well to the north. The U. S Government had an interest in finding out what they were doing in those islands because it was suspected that they were fortifying the islands, which they weren't supposed to be doing so anyway. So Amelia it wasn't listed to fly over the islands and spy on them. The Japanese shot them down and supposing they survived the crash and eventually executed them on Saipan. Yeah, and a magazine called Air Classics a guy named this

is in April named Roland Rheineck. Yeah, and now revealed the fall going this is this is a whole big stonewall cover up theory. Here the whole thing. In April ninety eight, Paul Monts, who had been a technical adviser for Amelia Earhart, wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt asking if she would use her influence to get him a copy of the official report of the cutter Itasca because they were good friends an Eleanor. Yeah, they were, or at least

it's not good friends. They were friends. Yeah, he had asked the Coast Guard for a copy of the report, but they said that they wouldn't release it to him for the right channels or something. Apparently. Yeah, So Eleanor sent the letter to Henry Morgan thou with a note Henry market that was Secretary of the Treasury and one of the FDR's closest advisors. And on May thirteenth nine and this this eventually turned up actually in the files

of the National Archives. Morganto called Eleanor Roosevelt and spoke with their secretary and he said to her, and I quote this letter that Mrs Roosevelt wrote me about trying to get the report on Amelia Earhart. Now I've been given a verbal report. If we're going to really is this, it's just going to smear the whole reputation of Amelia Earhart. If we ever released the report of the Ataska on

Amelia Earhart, any reputation she's got is gone. Now I know what the Navy did, I know what the Ataska did, and I know how Amelia Earhart absolutely disregarded orders. And if we ever release this thing, goodbye Amelia Earhart's reputation unquote. Now some people took this to me that Morgat that was thinking that a reputation would be ruined if people found out that she'd been spying for Uncle Sam. I don't take it that way. The one who feels like

he's saying she screwed. Yeah, I mean, there's like in the even in the official story, right, it says like she changed frequencies and obviously that was like a huge miss staff, right, Yeah, And I'm sure if she could hear the instructions she disregarded them, right, but like who, like why would you? I guess if she couldn't hear them, then it's understandable she might have been following a process

she had done before. I guess it's also possible. It's just occurring to me that she changed frequencies because she couldn't or anything and thought, good point, they're not getting what I'm saying. Cycle through the frequency is not necessarily

not a bad idea. You know. It might be like what you're saying too, with the whole thing about getting hit by lightning and having to go out half way through maybe something I mean even like a piece of hail, you know, like she just didn't know it could happen.

I do, I'll g I guess I do want to go ahead and state that, like, if your plane got hit by lightning, probably be one of the first things you said as soon as you were within radio contact, if you thought anybody could hear you, you would say, hey, we got hit by lightning. So I don't know what's going on, but here's some information. And then you wouldn't need to say, hey, I got hit by lightning. Here's

another update. We don't know what's going on, right, It does seem like you would mention that, but yeah, I'm sorry, that's off topic. I think that report would have been oh my god, lightning got hit by lightning. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, lightning, oh my god, something like that. Yeah, but that you would want, I mean, maybe this is just my rational Yeah, I understand entirely, but it's perfectly okay. You know, if you go down,

you just deploy your life raft and you're fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, Well back to this article. Reineck goes on too. And by the way, this guy this is really annoying. When I was typing this up. This guy's name is spelled R E I N E. C. K. And every time I would type that his name and able to autocorrect would turn it into red necks. Yeah. Yeah, I finally just gave up his red neck. Yeah. His article also notes some gaps in the radiologus, which I don't find

entirely all that suspicious, you know. And uh, he makes note of a of a letter that had been received by the U. S. Armies saying that Amelia had been shot down by the Japanese. And then last of all, he talks about a request from Senuel Daniel Acacca of Hawaii to Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. Senator Roca wanted to see Henry Morganteus files on Amelia and shout Treasury Secretary Brady replied that the morgan the files had been sent

to the National Archives. Well that's suspicious, don't you think. I know, that's That's what I'm wondering why, But yeah, he's yeah, that this right, yeah Rightdeck as a basically a cover of so Morgant morgantou Stone walls about Amelia and then Brady Stone walls on Morgant thou um so cover up, cover up, And that to me doesn't prove a damn thing. But that's the way this guy spun

the whole thing. Yeah. But the problem with this whole theory about spying in the Marshall Islands is if she had if she had gone through the Marshalls and overflown representative number of islands and set to see what the Japanese are doing, and then headed on down to Holland Island, she would have run out of fuel. That's a significant yeah. Yeah, And as it happens, it would have been even bigger because the plan actually did flew over the island of Nauru on the way halfway out there, so I would

have had to go halfway. Um, I think so, yeah, they're at least radio, but I think it was still light what she went over that that island. That after passing that island, she would have had to basically turn left and head up to the head up to the Marshals do or spying and then come back down. So it was even a more significant detour than just going straight there from light. Also, um wouldn't have been like night. Oh yeah, I did a good film, yeah, really really

good camera. You don't have film that good? Yeah, I mean I don't. Yeah, I'm probably the military does, but I don't. Yeah. Yeah, but they didn't have that kind of not in a place when they couldn't even change over to the right radio frequency. They didn't. You would have had to put a really big flash bowl on the bottom, and then it would have been probably reported. Yeah, right, Have there been any UFO reports from that time in that area, Yeah, it's her. Yeah. Anyway, back to the report,

the report was kind of scathing. It was written by the about and that and that is I've seen I've seen some extra from the report, and it was rather scathing, and so that's obviously the reason why Margot didn't want to release it. I think. I think part of it, though, is is the there was a certain level of sexism at that time towards that profession, and I'm sure that that really colored the reports, Yeah, influenced so that it

was in the tone that it was in. Yeah, there probably there was some bias on the part of at least some of these people. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. I shouldn't say no doubt. I mean there could have been. I don't know what it was. There probably was. Lastly, on the spying theory, Amelia's families denies that she as he was doing any of that. Her sister said that they were very close and that there's no way that

she would have not mentioned that to her. I'm just gonna it was I'm just gonna say again, it seems like a really but if you're trying to do something covert, why would you tack it onto something where you're literally publicizing that exactly. And the fact of the matter is, you know, there were plenty of plenty of ways to get spies in there to look around, and so yeah, this just seems like a weird cover story. Now that's a lane. I get this one to fail. What do

you guys think? Yeah, basically no zone, okay ye. Our next theory is that they couldn't find Hown Island, so they crashed land on me Atoll in the Marshall Islands, which is you know, the south south side of the chain, but it is controlled by the Japanese, and the Japanese you know, of course, grabbed them and you know, send them to Saipan and and then eventually killed them. Uh. There are this there are a fair number of people

who actually buy into this theory. They would have had to have been way far off course to um, I mean really far off course. I guess my thing with that is that wouldn't it seems like the Japanese would try to ransom them, ransom them, not if they were hiding something, but they were hiding so were doing they would not ransom those people. But I don't think that this theory says that they were hiding something, right, It was just that they accident, They were off course when

they crash landed. Yeah, I thought you were talking about the Japanese hiding something. Oh I was You're saying that they weren't hiding anything. They did Japanese find them and would have then tried to ransom them, ransom them all. I don't think they would have even tried that. You. I mean, we were not at war with Japan at this time, but we weren't. We weren't under good relations, so it wasn't it wasn't the best. But now it's not like we had the best relations with the Russians.

But the Russians, if somebody crash landed on their territory would probably just hand them back, you know. The it was because they were civilians And I didn't mention this before, as you guys know, there was a huge search effort undertaken to find her, and they called a huge amount of ocean looking for the plane and they never found it and attend to Japanese warships took part in that

search effort, you know. Yeah, it does seem unlikely. Yeah, they would have probably said we have them, well if they if they had something super secret on the atoll, but I've seen aerials of that and it's just a basically kind of a square, a sliver of land around a big lagoon. There's not not much you can put their militarily speaking, well, and I know I'm looking at your notes, but there's there's people who say that that they give accounts that these two were alive at some

point with the Japanese, and that's a weird thing to me. Yeah. And then yeah, and so they captured on the atoll and then they took him to Saipan and eventually, so the story goes, they were both executed or Fred got executed and Amelia died of disease or something, and maybe Amelia and Fred were actually spied for the Japanese. That could have been. Maybe they're over there living there right now. Yeah, anyway, I don't know if you guys have any more thoughts

on this. I give it a fail. I mean, they're playing could easily have reached the atoll from where they left. I mean, but again, it would be a massive, massive error of navigation, but it could have. It could have reached it for sure. Now I don't think but by going all the way over to Holland and then up, No, no way, okay fail. Another story that got out there is I think this started about seventies, that she survived and assumed a new identity and in New Jersey she's

living with a tupac and yeah, doth Arnold, Yeah exactly, yeah. Yeah. So this idea was floated in a book called Amelia Earhart Lives, published in nineteen seventy. The claim is that Amelia survived Japanese captivity, returned to the US after the war and where she moved into New Jersey and changed her name to Irene Polam and uh Irene for her parts through the publisher and got an out of court settlement for an undisclosed amount, and then the book was

taken off the market. I've seen a picture of Irene and she looks sort of like Amelia Earhart. Did you guys ever see that picture over it's out there? I want to say yes, but I don't remember it. Not a perfect match, I would say, not even like Devin showing it to me. Yeah, that's she looks like Princess Die more than a million. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, so I think this is an incredibly weak theory. How anybody could buy intoism is beyond me, much less publish

a book about it. And why would why wouldn't reli are do that? Well exactly, she liked publicity. Yeah, it's hard to imagine her living in obscurity voluntarily because if she had come home after the war, she would have come home to a hero's welcome. That would have been huge, and then she could have she could have written books that would have made movies. I mean seriously, it would

have been. It was part of what she made part of her living from before she went on this, is that she was on a speaking tour and writing books. She was going to write a book about this, this around the world. Of the reason to do this was to generate of, you know, money for the next five to ten years. Yeah, yeah, and so so this is one of the most assnine theories I've ever seen. Do you guys agree? Yeah, I believe you're going to say this is a fail. That's a fail. Okay, next theory

not quite okay, not quite. Yeah. So this theory is there. There's there's an island fifty miles south southeast of of our island of Holland. A lot of people think that they crash landed on an island called Gardner Island, which is about three fifty miles south southeast of Holland Island. Uh. And there's a there's a reef on the northwest corner of the island, and it's kind of flat, flat enough

to land a playing on. So let's believe that she could have landed that plane on the reef and actually been there for you know, days, or however long it took it. But they eventually died of thirst. So here's

why so many people liked this theory. Remember I talked about that line they were traveling on seven three seven, Uh, Now it's seven okay anyway, So they if you draw that lawn through that line through Holland Island, it almost did that that bearing and almost directly goes to Gardener Island. On reason people like it, So it's yeah, it would be south of there. For four or five days after she went missing, there were various weak radio signals that

people were hearing that were perhaps from Amelia Earhart. So it was theorized at the time that maybe she had found a place to land and he was broadcasting S O S messages. So that's another reason that people like this theory. Yeah. So what if I remember I said that there were there were big cloud banks to the

west of Holland Island. What if they emerged through a navigation area or far south, far from far enough south of Holland Island, they were not able to see that column of smoke that the Atasca was admitting and so as far enough, so they turned before they were lower. Yeah, yeah, one way or another. Uh, they don't see it, and so they and so then they're under the impression that they're actually north of Holland Island. So they turned right,

had done that line. Maybe you know, they they wind up coming across this island, which is not the right island. But well, we're out of gas, so it's time to land this thing. So yeah, if you're running out somewhere to land and the yeah, and and so other supports for the theory is in there was a British colonial officer named Gerald Gallagher who found a skeleton and what appeared to be a sexton box on the southeast corner

of Gardener Island. You know, I'm not I'm not calling it the actual name of it as Nicu mar Ro. I'm calling it Gardener Island. They've renamed it, but I'm gonna call it Gardener Island now. Yeah, this one, Uh no, it's sacri figout what country it's It's part of another

like Archipela Archipelago. Country that's not Japanese. Gerald Gallagher set the skeleton to Fiji, where British authorities had looked at it, and they concluded that it had belonged to a man about five ft five inches tall, But then analysis of the measurement data concluded that the scaleton naturally belonged to a tall white woman of European ancestry. Uh that. I never understood how that worked, How they managed to do that? You mean, yeah, that's a good question. Was gone, Yeah,

that's the original skeletons long Sin. Yeah, so I don't know they did got a look at the records and something. I conclude that it's actually not a five ft five guy. But you know, I don't know if they were photographs or what. But well, I guess maybe if there were like specimens, samples, spamples. Yeah, I don't think so, yeah, I don't. Well, this is done under the auspices of a group called let me it's the International Group for

Historic Aircraft Recovery a k A. Tiger. Yeah, yeah, I know they these guys started investigating Gardner Island as a possible resting place for Amelian Fred's in eight and I think they're still at it. I know they had they had an expedition i'd look as late as two thousand twelve out to the island, So they've been island. Now, it's not that huge now that as far as I can tell, they have an unblevished record. In twenty years of historic aircraft recovery, they haven't found anything. Yeah, it's

a perfect record. Yeah, and maybe they haven't been rung yet perfect zero, but it's perfect. Yeah. So any way that that's what they believe, is that they landed on the reef and then they just died. Yeah. And again it is the radio. Because of the radio messages which were heard by a lot of people. Nobody is really sure if it was Amelia or just pranksters. I could

have been a lot of pranksters. So the thing that I read was that because everybody knew that she was missing and they were on that frequency, a lot of people were calling and people and I've read this and somebody said, you know, there was so much traffic on there that it was kind of jammed up, and you've got little whisps of prior of transmissions that were just too low to make out, but you could kind of hear something, and so that's people were like, Oh, no,

that's what's this kind of saying, that's what's happening is that it's just too many people on the band and they're all talking and it's just degrading the signal. So you're just picking up little bits here and there. But normally there's let's say five people in the Pacific using it, there's now five hundred. Problem. Yeah, it is a problem,

and they usually regulate things like that. I know there are a lot of military frequencies where you cannot as beyond they regulate stuff like that, but I guess this one they weren't regulating. Ah yeah, and this this might have been all over the frequency range too. I'm not sure. It also could have been under the auspice of like, let's all listen to see if we can hear her. Then they might have been a little more lenient at

that point. That is the thing to do is just for everybody to just shut up and stay off the radio and just listen. Yeah, that would have been. There was people calling Amelia, can you hear us? You hear the ghost of you know, the bits of a voice through the static. Yeah, and you think you hear you know, somebody says, Amelia Earhard, are you there? It's and it

translates to Amelia Earhart is there? This happens exactly, And it's the dumbest thing because I mean, obviously, if Amelia and Fred have a working radio, they're going to be on at trying to get calling you don't you think? Yeah? Yeah, But anyway, there was one one notable instance, which was a girl named Betty Clink who was living in Florida at the time. This is a hell of a skip if she got radio skip. Yeah, like you know us not unheard of, but it is a hell of a skip.

You're right halfway around the world. Yeah, But she was fiddling with her dad's shortwave radio and she heard a woman's voice saying, this is Amelia Earhart. Helped me. So she listened to this transmission for three hours or so. It took notes, and years later she gave those notes to Rick Gillespie, who is ahead of Tiger Tiger Tiger or whatever you call him. Uh. And I've seen copies of the notes. They're not there, they're not too readable.

What you can you can make sense. Somebody's transcribed them, so they're making it much easier to read. Mostly a woman's voice, but there was a man's voice in the background, and he sounded kind of agitated and and at one point he says he's got to leave because quote the

waters knee deep let me out unquote. And this woman kept making reference to New York City and if actually said that a total of seven times, which is key because just a stone strowaway on that reef was the wreck of the s S Norwich City, which, yeah, which founded on that reef in team. So was Amelia saying Norwich City, But Betty Clank was hearing New York City or just not understanding what Norwich was. And yeah, yeah,

that's the closest thing that she knows about. So and with that, because that would be a way to clue the navy into your position. Now there are yeah, there are some numbers in Betty's notes, but none of them

bear any resemblance to Gardner Island's actual coordinates. And since Fred was apparently still alive, it's been assumed by everybody that he was incapacitated due to injury or something, or maybe a sextant got broken in the landing, so they didn't know their location, but they luckily had a shipwreck right there called the Norwich City. Very convenient, it's very handy, a great way to clue people in as to where you are. But unluckily, it doesn't appear that anybody heard

that transmission other than Betty, so well that makes you want. Yeah. Rick Gillespie, a Tiger, theorizes that the amelion, Fred and the plane were on the reef for four or five days before the plane got finally swept off the reef and out to sea, and they suspected it's still they're not far offshore, and of course they haven't found it yet though, and they did find, I think this was in two thousand twelve, they did find using sonar a large airplane sized object on the seafloor not too far

away from the island. But there's yeah, there really are a lot of those. Yeah, I mean not not not I'm I'm I'm being I'm joking specif theory, but there's a lot of airplane sized things on the bottom of the ocean. Frankly, whales are airplane sized things. That's a good point. And yeah, you know, in the course of the World War two we left, we left a lot of airplane wreckage on the on the Pacific slore. So yeah,

there's lots of it down there. Uh yeah, I don't know why they weren't able to confirm this, that this was actually the plane or not. Maybe they just wanted an excuse to come back with a later day. Yeah. Google Ocean hadn't been finished at that point, so well, anyway, they did score o the island. They found some interesting stuff. The big find is a rectangular piece of aluminum with a lot of ribbit holes in it. Yeah you've seen I have, and I really questioned it. That couldn't have

come from anything else, you know. Beaches anywhere. Yeah, well they did have they did cover. They didn't have one of the windows on the on the electro plated over with aluminium. And this is about the size and dimensions of that piece of aluminum. So here's my question though, is I understand why the body of the aircraft has a bajillion rivets in it because it's riveting that skin to a frame. But why would the window cover have a bajillion rivets that were in the same line as

the body when there's no frame to be riveting it too? Well, yeah, exactly, I don't you know, I don't know what actually you would be building that would need that many rivets. It was the riveted the hell out. Oh yeah, it's riddled with them. Yeah. Well we'll talk about that that piece a little bit later here, but yeah, that that is definitely a reasonable question. But Rick Ullespie of Tiger is uh says he's that it's it's a real deal. Let's see what else they find is there. Can you do

testing on the metal? I under sure you could probably you know, like if they took it to I'm sorry who made the electra blocked. If like he took it to Lockheed and said, hey, can you test this medal if it's even remotely similar to what you used at that time? It seems like they could do that, right, probably okay, but I don't know if he's done that or not. He claims he likes his point. Yeah, he plans.

He claims he's got it and gotten it more or less authenticated, But I don't know what that process hasn't released any of the authentication information. Well, we are more or less detectives. Yeah, yeah, the well, you know the detective's license. Yeah, well you know that. That's that's like the whole skeleton thing. You know, suddenly this guy, this guy gets involved with and suddenly they decided it had to be a tall white woman. Yeah, and uh, let's

see what else they found. They found an impressive hall of stuff. They found a cap from a jar, zipper pole that he left, a woman shoe, a piece of plexiglass that was curved and they could possibly have been from an airplane window if we improvised tools. And a piece of bone one that appears to be part of a human finger, although DNA analysis has been inconclusive on that one. Do you think Amelia a heart war heels when she was flying. Well, I'm not sure if these

were high heels or low heels. I don't knows of any kind. Yeah, I don't know. Well, boots, I mean you wear boots in general, I mean just regular day to day boots have a heel on them. Yeah, these aren't high heels. No, I think they're like, look at Joe's shoe. There's a heel on the rear of it. But it's part of the overall soul. It's so I I have the impression that it's a I'm sorry, I'm kind of a nerd about thing. I know you are,

that it's a disconnected soul. That it's not. You know that the heel is different from the soul of the shoe, which usually means that it's a bigger heel a little bit. No, if it's going to be a flat soul, If you're wearing a flat shoe of any kind, the soul is one one continuous piece. Even an inch, you usually have the same continuous piece. Yes, don't look at me like that. I know my stuff. And then two inches usually is

when you start to get the too disconnected pieces. No, even I think, Okay, I don't know, I mean because yeah, I have. I've owned pairs of dress shoes, for example, where it was like a long sort of almost wouldn't he any thing with a with a rubber soul attached to it? And then we're talking like, you know, half to three quarters of an inch of of heal, yeah, and so you know, I'm very sure could have become

disconnected somehow. So if we're talking, yeah, I wouldn't call that a heel off of a person's shoe that they don't know even for sure if it's a man's or a woman's. I don't know that there's much to be gained by this because we Joe just hit on the perfect point. We don't know if it's a man or a woman's heel, and it could have washed up there along with a thousand rubber ducky well exactly, So we're talking it's the rubber we have we seen pictures of it,

the hell yeah, I have not. If you could probably go out to Tiger's website and see if he's But here's the deal is that that island is people have been people have actually lived on that island off and on for for years, and people have been visiting the island at the time for you know, for well over a hundred years, people have been coming and going from that, as have critters, which is why the fingerbone could easily

be from a turtle. Yeah, that's what they're saying, is that the as far as the DNA analysis goes, because they can't tell, I can't tell if it's a human or sea turtle. They really can't, but it would be. It would be really surprising if you scoured the island to not find some junk land around. People are messy. We threw stuff in the ocean off that time. I am impressed that they found so little, I really am.

It means they are either spectacularly incompetent or people have been a lot tied here than we give them credit for him. I don't know. But here's my other problems with what their theory overall, which is the the the aluminum panel. Their theory stipulates that the plane landed on the reef intact and they were using the radio. So that how did that luin in peace get detached from the airplane. It's a good question. Yeah, yeah, all right.

Next up Betty Clank's notes. Remember Norwich Norwich City to New York City. Um, and I looked in there and there are lots of references to New York City, but nowhere near that is the word wreck or shipwreck, because you know, I think about it. Imagine, but I could, I could see you saying, you know, we are near the Norwich City expecting everybody to understand that the Norwich is a wreck. Yeah. Here's a question. When was it

that Betty was listening? Betty? Right, Betty? Supposedly it was like the afternoon of July, So it was right when they would okay, never mind, I was going to make the argument that, Okay, so they're like dehydrated and malnourished and have just gone through this incredible trauma. You know, you're just kind of saying things that you can see, not necessarily thinking, oh I should tell them it's a shipwreck. But if it was that night, no, no, yeah, no

it was. And and and the thing about it is is, um, let's imagine you're you're shipwrecked and there's a ship right there. It's called the Bob Jones, the s S Bob Jones, and you want to be found. So if you have half a half an ascid brains, you're not going to be saying Bob Jones, Bob Jones, Bob Jones. You're not gonna say that. You're gonna say the wreck of the Bob Jones, the shipwreck of the Bob Jones, if anything else,

the uss Bob Jones. Yeah, and this does assume that she was, you know, that she was hearing Amelia heard, or the she was transcribing whatever from that first night, because if you take a couple of days of dehydration and malnourishment and stuff like that, it's it's much easier to see that you're just literally like rock ship ocean tree. True, you know, but but the island had that was surveyed later that year. By the next I'll talk to talk about that it had well over a hundred big, healthy

coconut trees. Yeah, what you could say, Yeah, lots of lots of that stuff. So here's my next problem with their theory, which is, Okay, the plane was washed off the reef by wave action, but wouldn't it be more likely that breakers would have been coming in from outside the island and pushed the plane off into the lagoon.

I would say, not even more likely. Yes, I actually want to play Devil's advocate because you're presuming that it is landed in the middle of and sitting on top of the reef instead of just just barely resting on the exterior edge of the reef, which when it breaks free and it's sinking, it would slide back down just the wave action would break whatever was holding it. Doesn't seem like then it would just be sitting like right next to I am in I'm in agreement when you

on that point, but I'm saying it. I think that yes, it should have gone in works, but it could easily have gone outwards and then it's blown through the ocean for several miles. That thing, with that, with that big gass empty tank, it would have it would have I don't know that it would have been positively boy, but it definitely wouldn't have been too terribly negatively when so, it could have easily floated a long ways away. Yeah, especially with those big old wings. You know, we could

just you could just drift on for miles perfectly. Uh. Here's my next problem with it, though, is that it really does appear from the radio transmissions they were getting they were even stronger and stronger. I mean, it appears that Amelia and Fred were very close to Holland Island before they made that turn and headed south. And it just seems they just they just did not have enough gas to get all the way to Gardener Island. But what do you guys think, I think, Yeah, I mean

there's that it's even a perfect mileage. I think it's a stretch to say they got there. And they definitely weren't getting perfect mileage. No, they weren't. They weren't. They wouldn't know what the head winds and everything else. Uh. And here's my last problem with it is that's the navy plane searched the other and I mean they've searched

all the islands in the vicinity. Yeah, they flew around it on July night and they circled it, flew over it and everything, and they looked at it pretty carefully, and they saw nothing. Uh. And of course, as you said, they could have died of thirst. Except that's just only they're really, really stupid, or they found no way to crack open coconuts, which you know would mean there's no rocks. Yeah. Yeah, And I got used their heel of their shoe, which we did find. It is a wide soul of the

bottom of one of them. Yeah, you know, I'm sure they must have had something on the plane. Yeah, or a rock or a rock yea or a rock. I literally have rock will do it. Yeah, I know that's the historic documentary, right yeah. Yeah. So anyway, besides those guys, in October n seven, a British Colonial Service survey team went to the island and spent three days surveying it. That those are the guys that they think they kind of a huddering in eleven big coconut trees with lots

of coconuts on them. They said that there was just you know, scads and scads of fish in the lagoon and big coconut crabs which would be real good eats, probably not that hard to catch, and said there was plenty of plenty of stuff to keep them alive there. And last of all, there would have been a lot of stuff if if their plane was actually on the reef, wouldn't they wouldn't you have offloaded everything that you could off of that plane onto the island. That's presuming that

you're able to get back to the plane easily. Well, apparently they were, because they kept going on the plane to make radio calls. Maybe they stayed in the plane. It could It could be if they stayed in the

plane too. May have said that is a long way and I can't make that swim and oh god, sharks because we're a friend of sharks or sorry, oh no, and so they just say, screw it, We're gonna stay here where we can use our radio, which is weird because the radio probably would have been dead in the water.

But okay, okay, whatever. Yeah, well, now this is this The reef was actually somebody did an analysis of that whole thing, of the tides and everything, and the reef was actually high and dry it most of the time. I mean, it was not always completely high dry, but I think I think the water rose up over the top of it. Not huge, not a huge amount, although tides varied from day to day. I was in the presumption that it would have been partially submerged at all times.

That was my presumption. I would, I guess, piggyback on the argument that Steve was making earlier that the plane could have been on the outer edge of the reef kind of like you know, almost like a car over a cliff, right, And so you kind of have to say, well, yeah, there's usable stuff in there. But if I go back in there and get sucked down with it, I'm done. So let's just stay where we're at with the things

we have. But you would assume that they had something, but they again, yeah, they would have taken something with you. It's a plane plops down, is it moving? You grab whatever you can, You get your go bag of stuff and you go. Well, and they had, as far as I know, unless they were really really stupid and they threw it away, they had a life raft in there. Although let's be fair, they threw away there antenna, so they might they were offloading stuff to reduce weight right

where they left on this. Yeah, I mean, so nobody really knows. I mean, I suppose you could. You could stay with you know, perfect common sense to say, hey, if we go down, we're just gonna we're just gonna break up and die anyway, So who needs a life raft? So maybe that's what they were thinking of. Yeah, those life rafts are really heavy, that's true. Okay, So anyway, it still amazes me that so many people take this theory seriously. Yeah, I have a lot of problems with it.

I think it's the hope, I guess, you know, because I mean, not the thing. We encounter this, well, we encounter this in a lot of stories. Right. The logical answer is this person disappeared. These people are dead. This happened, And I know that sounds really jaded, but that is the logical answer. But as humans, we want to assume that these other human beings survived. But I don't forget also that there's some people who make money off this stuff. Yeah yeah, I mean so Rick Ollespie and Tiger they

made a good living off this stuff. So yeah, so I maybe I should maybe I should start doing something like this, I don't know, like a podcast about stuff like this or whatever. You go. Yeah, yeah, well let's get on to our last area. Speaking of we're going to break up in the air anyway. Yeah yeah, I know. So this is a lot of there are people who really believe this, and kind it seems kind of obvious. Actually,

So they faced head winds throughout the trip. I had heard twenty six point five miles an hour, but let's assume it was intermittent. Uh So I concluded an average headwind of twenty miles an hour just for fun. Optimiary are speed for the electra Is was a hundred forty five miles an hour for the best field economy, which is, of course you're gonna want the best bank for your buck.

Fuel wise, Amelia and fred I was told that Amelia intended to fly at mph that would give the electrical ground speed we're assuming again twenty miles an hour average and headwinds, that would be a ground speed of a hundred twenty five miles an hour. So they reported at twenty hours and fourteen minutes into their trip that they turned to the one seven three thirty seven bearing. So if their ground speed was on dur they would have been two thousand, five hundred nine miles into the trip

and twenty seven miles short of Gardener Island. Yeah, so I remember what the commander of the Ataska said about the smoke. Didn't think it'd be more than twenty miles right from the north and west. He didn't think it would be visible more than twenty miles NT. It's it's a huge shame, But you know, if they had just gone a few more miles before they made that turn, uh, you know, things they might have turned out a lot differently if they were being able to see the sun

and then it had just come up. It's so it might have been shining in their eyes if they could see it. It It doesn't sound like they could, because if they had been able to see the sun, you would think they'd be able to see that column of smoke. Yeah, maybe, or maybe not. You know, maybe they popped out into the sun and then and that's the column of smoke was directly between them and the sun, and they were just they were kind of blinded and they just couldn't

see it. So I can't remember was it was it a coal fired unit or was it steam fired this ship? Because I'm trying to is it is it actually black smoke that it was belching, or was it was oil steam or oil or what was it? Was it was some kind of sooty thing. I'm not sure they would have been a black it wouldn't have been a steam cloud. I just suddenly couldn't grab that bit of information. Yeah,

I believe it was coal fired. I probably should have checked on that, But I guess also coming out of a bunch of clouds, you might think, well there's another freaking cloud. Yeah, okay, Well, according to what the commander said, do you seem to think it was pretty distinctively darker than the surrounding clouds. Yeah, he said, he said it was. It would have There's no way they could have not seen it unless they were more than twenty miles unless

they were more than twenty miles away to the west. Yeah. But I think that they might have chosen a poor time to arrive at Holland, and they probably should have left a little later, like one or two in the afternoon, and then in that way they would get there, it'd be mid morning and the lights and the light would be better, yeah, bad more Yeah. Yeah. But as as far as tenants soon how Fred noon and could have made that navigational error is up to there's been conjecture

about that. The one is that just because of the weather conditions, it was impossible for him to get accurate fixes on stars and the sun, and so he was just going by dead reckoning, and he figured out that twenty hours of flight they had to have reached the longitude of Howland, and maybe they understated estivated the total

strength of the head winds against them. Uh. And there's another theory that I read about, which is that he might have been able to take a fix on the sun as it came up and you can do that to fix if you know the time, you can do you can use that to fix your latitude. But you have to make there's a certain way of calculating it if you're on land, but if you're a thousand feet in the air, you have to make an adjustment to that.

And do you have to know what the time is locally? Yeah, so that could have been based on all I mean, we've we've been doing everything in granch mean, but if if the time zones are so weird, he could have easily been an hour ahead or behind where it was half an hour and that would have changed his his bury for what twenty hours storm? Yeah it was You know, when you do this stuff, you know, I don't know much about navigation, but I'm sure you've got to use

Greenwich meantime. You can't be futching around with the times. I don't really but but I mean, but okay, but even if it's not that, yeah, I mean, they've been flying for how many days, for how many average hours a day, They're coming off a twenty hour leg. At the end of their trip through a storm. You see

the sun and you go, yeah, just turn that way. Yeah. Yeah, So it might have been a really easy navigation errors something that he didn't make that adjustment, and if he had, just they ran out of fuel and they dumped it

into open ocean. Yeah. See, this is the whole thing, is why it's they if their radio receiver had been working, this would have turned out a lot differently because they could have gotten a weather report from the Itasca and they would have known basically, it's sunny to the south and east, cloud banks north and west, so they know that they're either in a cloud bank to the west of Howland or in a cloud bank to the north of Holland. And all you have to do is turn

southeast and keep going until you reach the sun. Turn right, Yeah, that's it. Turn right, yeah. And uh yeah, it's a it's a damn shame. I mean, just that one little thing, you know, lacking that radio receivers. I think it's it's we started joking about this beginning, but I think it's she was using new tech and there was some problems with that and I wasn't tested and something went went

wrong with it. We will never know what the problem was. Well, whenever we might find out, we might find a plan. One of these days. But I have a feeling that by the time we find the plane that everything is going to be so corroded into we're not gonna be oh, look that one glass fuse with blue. Yeah. But if we find the plane on land, then we'll know that they lived. Well that's true. Yeah, and you know, if we find that, we'll probably find some mysterious evidence that

he's choked her to death on their way down. Pretty much. Well, all right, so much worth you guys have any more thoughts, any more theories? No, I think Yeah, I think it's an unfortunate accident, very very unfortunate. Um. Yeah, so don't try to fly around the world with first gen tech. Well, and also don't throw away your trailing antenna. Yes, if they had that functioning radio, things would have turned out different. Yeah, that was a big mistake. Have been a hassle, but

it was worth it. Yeah. Alright, well, so much of that mystery. Another one down. You probably know if we have a website or not, Well, yes we do. It's called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, where you can download episodes, you can leave comments, you can check our links. We always put a few links up for all of our mysteries. Uh. If you find us on iTunes, where of course we are, you can subscribe and leave us a review hopefully it'll be a nice review. And of course you can stream

us in any one of a billion websites. We're on Facebook, so find us out there. You can like us uh and follow us. You can also join the group because we have a Facebook group. Twitter rights that is thinking Sideways without the g uh. And of course we have an email account, we really do. Yeah, thank you Sideways podcast at gmail. If you've got theories about Amelia or if you are Amelia in Fred about how to use email,

yeah yeah. What else, We've gotta sub Reddit. I'm not sure how active that is right now, but it's fine. It's there, Okay, keep joining and talking and joint talk. Yeah. And last of all, if you want to support the show, we are on patreon dot com. That's the kind of thing where it's kind of like you pledge a certain amount per episode. It's like run for the arts. Yeah, whatever you're comfortable with per We've also got the papal and we've been putting up new merch a bunch of

on our website. Yeah, so anyway, not not not necessary, but if you feel like sure. Yeah. And stickers, Yeah, we've been selling a lot of those. Well I don't know half a dozen anyway, So I guess it's patreon dot com slash thinking sideways if you want to find us, and the other links are on our website website. Ye. All right, Well that's it for this week. You guys have any final thoughts. I'm not gonna fly on my plane anywhere soon. Yeah, not over the ocean, that's for sure.

Let's take off, all right, hie guys,