Breaking News... is this Amelia Earhart's Airplane?

Frankly, we are a little disappointed with the news media.

They read a press release, and print it verbatim.  Never mind that no one saw her plane anywhere else but Saipan, never mind that over a dozen new eyewitnesses have come forth to say they saw her on Saipan, never mind that US Marines claim they found her plane, her briefcase, and now a portfolio of pictures from the Electra.

Never mind these facts, news media. Why report when you can print the press release?

Please. Watch for yourself these eyewitness reports.  Here are samples of eyewitness interviews, done this past March on Saipan of NEW eyewitnesses who saw Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on Saipan after 1937.  Of eyewitnesses her saw both her and her plane on Saipan.  Of eyewitnesses who saw her incarcerated on Saipan all the way into the 1940's.  Of eyewitnesses who found her plane in a hangar on Aslito airfield.. we could go on - but must we?

We are not selling this clip. We present it here for the world to see and hear themselves what the eyewitness reports are.  It's time to stop printing press releases and literally do some digging.  We know where the plane is buried. We intend to return to Saipan to dig it up. Literally.

Please share this with your local media outlet, share it with your friends, share it with anyone who really cares about where her plane came down and what REALLY happened to her.  See for yourself what they are saying by clicking on the photo:

Breaking News... is this Amelia Earhart's Airplane?

Frankly, we are a little disappointed with the news media.

They read a press release, and print it verbatim.  Never mind that no one saw her plane anywhere else but Saipan, never mind that over a dozen new eyewitnesses have come forth to say they saw her on Saipan, never mind that US Marines claim they found her plane, her briefcase, and now a portfolio of pictures from the Electra.

Never mind that news media.

Watch for yourself.  Here are the eyewitness interviews, done this past March on Saipan of NEW eyewitnesses who saw Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on Saipan after 1937.  Of eyewitnesses her saw both her and her plane on Saipan.  Of eyewitnesses who saw her incarcerated on Saipan all the way into the 1940's.  Of eyewitnesses who found her plane in a hangar on Aslito airfield.. we could go on - but must we?

Please share this with your local media outlet, share it with your friends, share it with anyone who really cares about where her plane came down and what REALLY happened to her.  See for yourself what they are saying by clicking on the photo:

The Airfield, The 2nd Eyewitness, The One who started it all...

Greetings from the page dedicated to finding the truth about whether or not Amelia Earhart and her Electra were ever on Saipan...

Digging on the airfield.
Note the Japanese bunker in background

Digging has continued at Alsito Airfield.  It took us a long time, and we jumped through all the hoops, but Captain Cooper was able to put shovel to dirt so to speak, in an attempt to dig up one piece of an airplane.

Digging at Alsito airfield. Captain Cooper and Jerry Facey assisting. Photo by Robert Rustin

It's a long shot to be sure.  But the logic goes like this; we have a number of people who claim they saw Amelia Earhart incarcerated on Saipan.  New eyewitness testimony, never before published, filmed live on Saipan with the eyewitnesses themselves.  We have old eyewitness testimony, shot by filmmaker Mike Harris when he was here in the 1980's at the start of this story.  We have eyewitness testimony, some on camera, some on paper of US soldiers who claim they saw Earhart's Electra on Aslito airfield.  We have new eyewitnesses to that effect, that have never been published or interviewed before.

Hydraulic Fluid Level Indicator

What they claimed was fairly simple, if not puzzling.  They claim they found her plane intact in a hangar on the field on or about June 19th, 1944. They claim the plane was guarded by US Marines, and then after a couple of weeks, the Electra was flown around the airfield, near Naftan point.  Then they further claim that the plane was taken out on the runway, covered with gas, and torched by US forces. We have various eyewitnesses to this event, two on camera who tell their story from two different points of view, and a number of others in print who describe watching the plane burn.  We aren't looking for the why of these events, even though we are aware how startling they are.  We are focused on "then what?"

So what happened to the plane after it burned?

And does aluminum burn along with other plane parts?

Electra in a museum in Tucson, Arizona

And how to differentiate from the many other planes that were destroyed on Aslito airfield, including Japanese zeroes (made from an aluminum alloy) and the many US planes that burned or crashed there?

Our premise is this; the Electra was made of an unusual alloy of aluminum.  Each part of the plane was identified, or stamped, and x-rayed in Burbank after it was repaired from her first mission.  If there is a plane part to be found, it would not be rusted, it would not be filled with moss (as the lesser aluminum alloy of Zeroes are) and it would be identifiable by the part number stamped on it or from its x-ray image.

Under the Electra during her Last Flight

We're only looking for one piece.

However, the airfield is large - and what we need to do is use various different pieces of equipment that can differentiate between ferrous material and aluminum. We are focusing on areas where eyewitnesses claim they saw the plane burned. By that process of elimination we are hoping to find one piece of the Electra.

Again, we aren't making up the story that the plane burned at Aslito. We are following the eyewitness reports of over a dozen US Marines who claim to have seen it there, seen it fly, or seen it burned.  Its possible that in the subsequent years, every piece of the plane was dug up and used as scrap metal.  It's possible that the plane was removed entirely from the field.  But that's not likely - as we know it was destroyed on the runway, and the standard operating procedure is still the same for burning planes - to push it off the runway and bury it.

Double rivets on the engine. The propellers were unique as well.

Needless to say there's a number of options for where the plane is buried.  And we're going through them one by one.

Rivets on a piece of aluminum from a plane found near the field

On the eyewitness front, we have a new eyewitness who corroborates the story of Jack Salas, who claims that in 1944 he saw the American woman flyer in the back of a Japanese army truck, her arms bound and wearing a black bandana.  This new witness has come forward only because of our reporting what Jack Salas said - because he also was there in Chalan Kanoa and saw the very same truck, identifying her as Amelia Earhart.  He too said it appeared as if the Japanese were showing their prisoners off to the islanders for some reason.  He too said it was a big event to see the first caucasian woman ever - dressed not like a woman, but like a man.  Not something ever seen on Saipan, not something anyone might forget, despite the years since seeing her on that truck.

Jack Salas's story  of seeing Earhart for 30 minutes on the back of a truck
corroborated by another Saipanese islander yesterday

Also on the eyewitness front, we've been granted an interview with the woman who was the very first person to report seeing Amelia Earhart on Saipan.  We are going to interview her in her home in a couple of weeks, and she has more of her story to impart.  Merely from a historic perspective, no one has taken the time to put this woman on camera to hear her story first hand.  And it's been 70 years since she first told it.  Don't you think its about time to hear her in her own words?

We do.

Thanks for tuning in....

Saipan interviews

We've begun our interviews with islanders who speak of the war years, and the persistent stories from many different islanders who saw, heard, or knew someone who heard of Earhart's presence on Saipan.  Each day brings different stories, some that collaborate others, some that are a mystery unto themselves.

Reportedly the prison AE was in

Earhart's reported cell

Museum curator Robert recounts many stories of AE's incarceration

Our mission is simple; what happened?  Not focusing on the why, or theories about why - just simple questions of "what did you hear?" "what did you see?" "what did they tell you?"  Like looking at the facets of a diamond from different close angles, its difficult to see the overall shape and texture of the actual objects - but by examining each story, each account in its own detail, we are able to get a clearer picture of what we are looking at.  More to come...