Earhart Survived

I watched the History Channel Earhart show last night. It was interesting, but certainly nothing definitive. Assuming the story is true, they found what they think was her final burial spot on Saipan. There was a dig there in 1968 by another group. They found 180+ bone fragments, but were unable to verify anything given the time (no DNA yet). The bones have since disappeared. Convenient? Maybe. Plus, they were digging along the corner of a cemetery. So, the chance of finding bones is pretty good.

The theory they put forward is certainly not outlandish, but there is a reason it's been unsolved for 80 years. Could they have been taken by the Japanese? Possibly. It's just as likely they crashed in the ocean. Either way, it's unlikely it will ever be solved.
 
There's enough circumstantial evidence to make this theory plausible. There's another researcher who didn't want to participate on the show that claims to know where the plane is buried. And it's certainly very plausible (if not likely) that the US government classified whatever info it had (no Edward Snowden/Wikileaks back then) to avoid giving away the fact that we broke Japanese codes.

All that said, there's a lot unanswered. Where did all the records go, including her briefcase and passport which were supposedly found? What happened to the bones? And what might be contained in the Japanese records of the war, which presumably were recovered as many of the German records were recovered - even if the US buried this (so to speak), one would thing that the Japanese had confirming records.
 
wsuffa said:
There's enough circumstantial evidence to make this theory plausible. There's another researcher who didn't want to participate on the show that claims to know where the plane is buried. And it's certainly very plausible (if not likely) that the US government classified whatever info it had (no Edward Snowden/Wikileaks back then) to avoid giving away the fact that we broke Japanese codes.

All that said, there's a lot unanswered. Where did all the records go, including her briefcase and passport which were supposedly found? What happened to the bones? And what might be contained in the Japanese records of the war, which presumably were recovered as many of the German records were recovered - even if the US buried this (so to speak), one would thing that the Japanese had confirming records.
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There's as much circumstantial evidence to point to this being a conspiracy theory as there is circumstantial evidence to substantiate it.
 
wsuffa said:
TIGHAR has already tried to debunk the photo....
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TIGHAR has steadfastly defended much less credible "evidence". Of course, that evidence supported TIGHAR's agenda...

And was used to generate interest and contributions.
 
wsuffa said:
TIGHAR has already tried to debunk the photo....
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The real significance of the photo is that it ties a whole lot of other more solid evidence together. Finding matching fragments of a plane in the areal of the initial sighting, along with three metal dolly wheels may be circumstantial but compelling. Also I would not consider multiple eyewitness accounts to be circumstantial.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The real significance of the photo is that it ties a whole lot of other more solid evidence together. Finding matching fragments of a plane in the areal of the initial sighting, along with three metal dolly wheels may be circumstantial but compelling. Also I would not consider multiple eyewitness accounts to be circumstantial.
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I agree. The photo by itself may be weak evidence, but I think that dismissing the eyewitnesses requires better justification than what I've seen so far.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The real significance of the photo is that it ties a whole lot of other more solid evidence together. Finding matching fragments of a plane in the areal of the initial sighting, along with three metal dolly wheels may be circumstantial but compelling. Also I would not consider multiple eyewitness accounts to be circumstantial.
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Oh, I agree. I was being sarcastic earlier.

There are long-standing accounts of her being on Jaluit.

And this guy claims to know where the plane is: https://earhartonsaipan.blogspot.com/ Of course, he's not disclosing a lot because he hope to make a movie.

I'd like to see some good concrete evidence before drawing a conclusion. Show me. One can take a variety of data points and make a compelling story. This one is plausible.

TIGHAR did a fairly detailed analysis of the Japan theory(s)... in which they discounted it for Earhart but admitted something might be true: http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/AEinMarianas.html In discounting it so quickly, they do hurt their credibility unless they find something on the island they're searching on.

All of which is to say that I'll reserve judgement on what's most plausible until I see more.
 
Oh, and the ship in the picture (the Koshu Maru) was sunk by US forces in 1944, so likely the ship's logs will not ever be seen.
 
redrum4me said:
Here's an article claiming a blogger debunked the History Channel's documentary in 30 minutes.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...lia-earhart-was-taken-prisoner-by-japan#img-2
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So, basically the photo is older than 1937, which means it definitely was not Amelia.

Apparently it was published in a book that was went out in 1935.

"Yamano ran an online search using the keyword “Jaluit atoll” and a decade-long timeframe starting in 1930.

'The photo was the 10th item that came up,” he said. “I was really happy when I saw it. I find it strange that the documentary makers didn’t confirm the date of the photograph or the publication in which it originally appeared. That’s the first thing they should have done.'"

it goes on to say

"Matthew B Holly, a military expert, told Agence France-Presse the photo appeared to have been taken about a decade earlier than the date given by the History Channel.

“From the Marshallese visual background, lack of Japanese flags flying on any vessels but one, and the age configuration of the steam-driven steel vessels, the photo is closer to the late 1920s or early 1930s, not anywhere near 1937,” he said."


 
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19884303_10155605376104189_1004979921275883432_n.jpg


published 1935 ;)
 
Well, that takes care of that!

It's too bad, because the rest of their investigation seems to make some sense.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
19884303_10155605376104189_1004979921275883432_n.jpg


published 1935 ;)
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How do we know that photo is legit? Something doesn't smell right about the image turning up in an Internet search. I'm sure plenty of people have had an opportunity to doctor the photo since it was initially presented.
 
Palmpilot said:
Well, that takes care of that!

It's too bad, because the rest of their investigation seems to make some sense.
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Well, she was reportedly a psychic, perhaps she could make things appear from the future... ;)
 
Sac Arrow said:
How do we know that photo is legit? Something doesn't smell right about the image turning up in an Internet search. I'm sure plenty of people have had an opportunity to doctor the photo since it was initially presented.
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It's hard to evaluate the reliability of the site where the book is reproduced, given that it's apparently all in Japanese. I'm guessing that the researchers in Sunday's documentary will be examining this very carefully.
 
Sac Arrow said:
How do we know that photo is legit? Something doesn't smell right about the image turning up in an Internet search. I'm sure plenty of people have had an opportunity to doctor the photo since it was initially presented.
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As stated in the article linked below on Flying magazine's website, the book "was digitized and published online by Japan's National Library. The publication date is listed in the traditional Japanese style as "Showa 10" — that is, 1935." Imagine that's pretty easy to verify.

http://www.flyingmag.com/history-channels-amelia-earhart-story-quickly-unravels?src=SOC&dom=fb
 
Palmpilot said:
This is one of the links from the news article. It appears to be the complete book. The photo appears on page 99. Somebody said the date is on page 113, but it's in Japanese.

http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1223403
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I went to the root of that URL, and the title of the site appears to be "National Diet Library Digital Collections." Googling that led me to an English language version of their home page:

http://dl.ndl.go.jp/?__lang=en

Wikipedia entry on the library:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diet_Library

I'd say that this is looking pretty legitimate.
 
Eyewitness accounts, however, are pretty hard to reconcile, particularly given the other evidence. Somebody took that photo, and for a reason. It ended up in two places. Maybe the Japanese knew about the photo, and needed a reason to explain its existence?
 
Sac Arrow said:
Eyewitness accounts, however, are pretty hard to reconcile, particularly given the other evidence. Somebody took that photo, and for a reason. It ended up in two places. Maybe the Japanese knew about the photo, and needed a reason to explain its existence?
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While I thought there was a lot of compelling evidence even without that photo, i certainly got the feeling that there was much more info being withheld from all sides.

I really enjoyed watching with my tin foil hat on...
 
Sac Arrow said:
Eyewitness accounts, however, are pretty hard to reconcile, particularly given the other evidence.
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I don't think the 1935 date on the book invalidates the evidence you're referring to. All it does is indicate that the photo is not relevant one way or the other.

Somebody took that photo, and for a reason. It ended up in two places. Maybe the Japanese knew about the photo, and needed a reason to explain its existence?
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Maybe the reason for taking the photo is consistent with the caption in the book. Maybe an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence saw the book sometime before 1941 and thought that the picture of the dock and ship would be of interest to the U.S. Navy. Are you suggesting that the current government of Japan cares enough about exonerating dead people to phony up a 50 page book, make it look old, and stick it in their library in hopes that someone would run across it?
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't think the 1935 date on the book invalidates the evidence you're referring to. All it does is indicate that the photo is not relevant one way or the other.


Maybe the reason for taking the photo is consistent with the caption in the book. Maybe an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence saw the book sometime before 1941 and thought that the picture of the dock and ship would be of interest to the U.S. Navy. Are you suggesting that the current government of Japan cares enough about exonerating dead people to phony up a 50 page book, make it look old, and stick it in their library in hopes that someone would run across it?
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I suppose I alluded to such, but the bottom line is the media is fixated on the photo, yet, the documented investigations suggested that, despite the photo, Amelia's final resting spot has probably been identified. I think you feel the same way.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I suppose I alluded to such, but the bottom line is the media is fixated on the photo, yet, the documented investigations suggested that, despite the photo, Amelia's final resting spot has probably been identified. I think you feel the same way.
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More-or-less, although I haven't gotten around to reading all of the critiques that have been linked to. I do think that I would need to have a good reason if I were going to dismiss the eyewitness accounts.
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't think the 1935 date on the book invalidates the evidence you're referring to. All it does is indicate that the photo is not relevant one way or the other.


Maybe the reason for taking the photo is consistent with the caption in the book. Maybe an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence saw the book sometime before 1941 and thought that the picture of the dock and ship would be of interest to the U.S. Navy. Are you suggesting that the current government of Japan cares enough about exonerating dead people to phony up a 50 page book, make it look old, and stick it in their library in hopes that someone would run across it?
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Shades of the song "Old Shoe" in the movie "Wag the Dog". I agree that's really far fetched.
 
There are a lot of Sasquatch eyewitness accounts out there too. Some even sound really credible and I think many of the people truly believe they saw what they say they saw. But I still don't believe in Sasquatches.
 
Palmpilot said:
Are you suggesting that the current government of Japan cares enough about exonerating dead people to phony up a 50 page book, make it look old, and stick it in their library in hopes that someone would run across it?
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A couple possibilities: An agenda driven person may have cared enough to phony up a 50 page book, make it look old, and cause it to get stuck in a government library. I would be interested to see if that photo of the page of the book passes the image tests run by the History Channel team on the photo itself. Another possibility was that the then-current government of Japan at the time may have cared enough to create a pre-dated book with the photo in it, and stick it in their library.

In any case, it's really not that important. All the other evidence combined looks pretty compelling, even if it was obtained by coincidence and mistake.
 
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