Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence

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Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence is a 2017 documentary by The History Channel that purported to have new evidence supporting the Japanese capture hypothesis of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. It has largely been discredited.

Historical claims and response

The "lost evidence" in question was a photograph found in the National Archives at College Park of Jaluit Atoll in Nanyo, the Japanese mandate for the Marshall Islands. The photograph shows a European-looking couple. The documentary posited that it was possibly a picture of a captured Earhart & Noonan. The Lost Evidence also says that a barge in the background might possibly contain a plane, and that plane might possibly have been the Electra.[1] The photograph was from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and prepared for the 1944 invasion of the Marshall Islands during World War II.

Two days after publication of The Lost Evidence, Japanese historian and blogger Kota Yamano investigated the issue, and published a blog entry that showed the original source of the photograph that the ONI had used: a travel book The Lifeline of the Sea: My South Sea Memoir (海の生命線 我が南洋の姿 Umi no seimeisen : Waga nannyou no sugata?), which was first published in 1935.[2][3] Earhart and Noonan's final flight was in 1937, so a photo taken in 1935 or earlier is impossible to be a record of Earhart and Noonan post-disappearance. In an interview with The Guardian, Yamano criticized the work behind the documentary, saying "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."[4] The National Archive itself had been skeptical as well, noting that the photograph did not have a date.[5]

In response, The History Channel cancelled rebroadcasts of the show, announced it would not be available on streaming or on-demand platforms, and stopped scheduled airings of the show in Canada and the United Kingdom.[6] It wrote in a press release that "HISTORY has a team of investigators exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart, and we will be transparent in our findings... Ultimately, historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers."[6] TIGHAR, a group that advocates the Gardner Island hypothesis of the disappearance, wrote that the photo was "neither lost nor evidence" and that the picture had been "exactly where it should be, and was exactly what it was labeled to be, a picture of Jaluit Harbor," criticizing the "lost and misfiled photo" element of The Lost Evidence as well.[7][4]

Reception

Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence had 4.3 million viewers, a high number for a History Channel show.[8] Several news reports provided free publicity for the documentary as well, saying that the Earhart case had possibly been solved, causing a burst of renewed interest in the case.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ "The Lost Documentary". TIGHAR Tracks, August 2017.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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