Posted on 03/29/2005 7:38:13 AM PST by freepatriot32
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands Mar 29, 2005 — Researchers want to excavate an old Japanese jail where aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator were rumored to have been detained before they vanished in 1937.
The Historic Preservation Office of the Northern Mariana Islands has applied for a grant with the National Park Service to fund the excavation, hoping to solve the 67-year-old mystery of what became of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan.
The Northern Mariana Islands, about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii, were administered by Japan from 1914 to 1944 and are now a U.S. commonwealth.
"In the past, there had been rumors that Amelia Earhart's plane was shot down and she was held captive by her Japanese captors on suspicion that she was a spy," said Epiphanio Cabrera, director of the preservation office. He said the aviator was supposedly "burned and buried at the back of the jail."
Earhart was 39 and already had set numerous flying records when she began her final flight May 20, 1937, from Oakland, Calif.
She made it as far as New Guinea. On July 2, she took off from there for tiny Howland Island on a 2,556-mile flight.
Earhart and Noonan never reached the atoll. In one of her last radio messages to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, she said her fuel was running low. No trace of her, Noonan or their Lockheed Electra plane was ever found.
The project looking for signs of Earhart's presence on the prison grounds is expected to begin by September, and could "close the gap" regarding various claims on Earhart's disappearance, Cabrera said.
A year after she and Noonan vanished, a French consul sent a telegram to the U.S. State Department claiming Earhart was a prisoner of the Japanese on Saipan. Some locals insist she died in captivity and was buried on the island.
ping
"Some locals insist she died in captivity and was buried on the island."
Some locals understand tourist dollars.
Is this the Amelia Earhardt theory du jour?
I thought I saw a program saying a piece of the plane was found in a lagoon .. Howland or somesuch place ?
i vagely rember hearoing something like that years ago they said they founda wing or somethnig i cant rember where they said they found it though
I think the fishes got her.
I thought the Japanese imprisoned Jimmy Hoffa. Oh well...
Never hire an alcoholic as your navigator...
Oh fer cryin outloud, everyone knows space aliens kidnapped her, mixed gorilla DNA in with hers and Janet Reno was born!
Where's the mystery??
Never hire a pilot on gender alone.
I think she ran out of fuel before she ran out of ocean.
That's always been my understanding...
how reno was spawned that is! (har, har)
Aeronaut, thank you (as usual) for my Aviation Ping. I read the articles most times, and am sorry that I haven't been contributing lately. Please keep pinging me, Aeronaut. Thank you again.
<< Jail Where Amelia Earhart Said Held to Be Probed >>
Who they reckon held her?
And why to be probed?
<< Never hire an alcoholic as your navigator... >>
Better yet, never go flying without a pilot!
Too bad Ms Earhart and Mr Noonan didn't heed that warning before they set out on their attempt to beat the aviation truism that there are old pilots and there are bold pilots but very very few of us old bold pilots.
BUMPping
,,, she's lucky she got clear of PNG. Even now people could end up as "spare ribs - all U can eat Tuesday, 10 kina."
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