Tuesday

The Daily Mail investigates the latest reports from Dick Spink and Les Kinney

To recap:


Dick Spink is the school teacher from Seattle we've become pals with.  He and Mike Harris and Les Kinney took a trip to Mili Atoll this past spring and came back with more artifacts.  I've spoken at length with Les about some of his research, he's spot on and corrected me in a number of areas.  I'm fond of saying "we're just trying to get at the truth" so I appreciate it when someone who's done the research can cite chapter and verse of what's really going on.

But pretty much, everything we reported - her coming down in Mili, her plane being taken by the Japanese aboard a ship, Bilimon Amaron meeting her aboard the ship (Mike Harris shot that original footage), AE and Fred being taken to Saipan and incarcerated.  CBS newsman Fred Goerner reported a number of accurate details, including her dysentery (which Les believes she died from.)  As I acknowledged, people's memories are not sacrosanct, so reports from Saipan of when and where events happened are estimates at best.

But we know she was incarcerated.  We know she died on Saipan.  We know her plane was found at Aslito. We know her plane was burned by US forces. We know her briefcase was recovered. We know that her body (or part of it) was exhumed.  All of these details have both eyewitnesses, some alive, some dead, and all of them now have corroborating evidence either in the form of documents or of eyewitness footage.

Why did the US not try to rescue her once they knew she had been arrested?  Why did the Japanese not trumpet that they had caught a "spy" - something she may or may not have been, but there were two Fairchild Aerial surveillance cameras put into her plane.  We can't answer those questions, but I believe they're beside the point.  First it's important to examine what happened.  Then it's important to examine how it happened. Then it's important to examine why it happened.

We have both the what and how.  In a few weeks, Parker and Alcoa will release their report based on the pieces that Dick Spink found, that Jim Hayton has verified from his professional opinion, that Les Kinney has found and delivered to them the actual alloy document that is from the original specs on her plane, that Mike Harris got original footage of islanders back in the 1980's, that I got footage of US Marines who found her briefcase and plane, and most recently, got more reports from Saipan from people who claim they saw her there after 1937.  It is all coming together, and soon - it will be in a news story near you.



EXCLUSIVE: Are these bits of metal proof that Amelia Earhart died after being captured by the Japanese on remote Pacific atoll – and the U.S. government KNEW but covered it up? 

  • Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan have not been heard of since July 1937 when they took off from New Guinea on 30th leg of round the world flight
  • But two investigators hope the mystery could be at an end within weeks
  • They believe they have two vital bits of evidence proving they landed in the Marshall Islands that day
  • If correct, it could prove they died while in the hands of the Japanese military - and that the U.S. government decided hero pilot was 'expendable'
Compelling new evidence found among the jagged coral of a tiny North Pacific island could be the key to finally unravelling the mystery of exactly what happened to U.S. aviator Amelia Earhart after she disappeared almost 80 years ago.
The corroding pieces of metal, discovered on the Mili atoll in the Marshall Islands, are currently being analysed to find out if they are the wheel well trim and dust cover from Amelia’s Lockheed Electra plane, which disappeared over the Pacific in 1937, while she and her navigator Fred Noonan were attempting to fly around the globe.
The two men behind the find believe that they are in possession of another piece of tantalising evidence that they claim proves she and her companion were captured by the Japanese and died while in their hands.
But by far the most incendiary allegation they make is that the U.S. government knew of the fate of Earhart and Noonan but did nothing to help them and then kept the dark secret for 78 years.

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Mystery: Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had made it most of the way around the world when they disappeared in July 1937 - sparking an enduring hunt to get to the bottom of what happened
Mystery: Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had made it most of the way around the world when they disappeared in July 1937 - sparking an enduring hunt to get to the bottom of what happened
Off course: One of the theories is that they landed on the coral shore of a small atoll in the Marshall Islands - a theory Dick Spink (pictured on the island) and Les Kinney hope to prove after finding a piece of metal
Off course: One of the theories is that they landed on the coral shore of a small atoll in the Marshall Islands - a theory Dick Spink (pictured on the island) and Les Kinney hope to prove after finding a piece of metal
Discovery: Two sleuths who have dedicated years to solving the mystery believe the circular piece of metal,  left, is a dust cover from the wheel hub of Earhart's plane. It is now with experts who are analysing its authenticity
Discovery: Two sleuths who have dedicated years to solving the mystery believe the circular piece of metal,  left, is a dust cover from the wheel hub of Earhart's plane. It is now with experts who are analysing its authenticity
The fate of Earhart has been the subject of endless worldwide speculation in books, movies, TV specials and has brought numerous researchers into the vast Pacific looking for vital clues.
But the men behind these latest extraordinary claims hope their discoveries will end the speculation once and for all - and within a matter of weeks.
Les Kinney and Dick Spink are convinced a skinny piece of metal and another small, circular piece of metal - which are currently being analysed by the companies which built Earhart's plane - is actually the trim and dust cover from the aircraft's landing gear, which they say broke off when it smashed along the rough coral shore at Mili at about 10am on July 2.
If it is proven to be part of Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E it means they were more than 850 miles from Howland Island, their next scheduled refuelling stop when they disappeared.
It also puts them 2,000 miles from the spot in the sea where other Earhart sleuths believe the plane, having run out of fuel, crashed on that same morning.
But more than that, if the plane landed on Mili - as Kinney and Spink are convinced it must have - it lends credence to speculation that the doomed adventurers fell into the hands of the Japanese, who just five years later would be engaged in all-out war with the Americans.
Opening doors: If it does prove to be part of the Lockhead Electra 10E (pictured with Earhart in 1937), it will cause people to relook at a number of other theories - including what happened next to the adventurers
Opening doors: If it does prove to be part of the Lockhead Electra 10E (pictured with Earhart in 1937), it will cause people to relook at a number of other theories - including what happened next to the adventurers
Destroyed: A close up of the wheel, which is thought to have been torn up as they landed on the coral
Destroyed: A close up of the wheel, which is thought to have been torn up as they landed on the coral
Clues: Spink with the plastic replica of the dust cover that was found on Mili Atoll and a copy of the wheel hub it would have attached to
Clues: Spink with the plastic replica of the dust cover that was found on Mili Atoll and a copy of the wheel hub it would have attached to
It has long been rumoured that the 39-year-old pilot and her navigator were captured by Japanese troops who were setting up military bases in the Pacific. Those troops were said to be on board a transport ship heading to the island of Saipan, where Japan had a large military base.
There are those, with Spink and Kinney among them, who claim the Lockheed was put on carts used for transporting ammunition and then loaded on to a barge that was towed to the island of Jaluit. There, it is presumed the plane was lifted onto the ship and then taken to Saipan. 
Kinney and Spink, part of a team who travelled to the Mili island last January, found the remains of three of the ammunition cart's metal wheels and axles, while the wooden tops rotted away years ago.
Kinney said: 'The rails were moved and reset until the Japanese reached the lagoon side of the beach where the plane was loaded onto a small barge with the help of 40 locals'. 
They did not die as claimed by the government and the Navy when the Electra plunged into the Pacific - they died while in Japanese captivity on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas. 
Amelia Earhart's fourth cousin Wally  
Suspected by the Japanese of being spies for the Americans, some claim the pair were held on Saipan until they died despite the lack of physical evidence, with the cause of their deaths the subject of further controversy.
In 2009, Wally Earhart, Amelia’s fourth cousin, said the U.S. government continued to perpetrate a ‘massive cover-up’ about the couple and insisted they had died in Japanese custody.
‘They did not die as claimed by the government and the Navy when the Electra plunged into the Pacific - they died while in Japanese captivity on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas,’ said Mr Earhart, who did not reveal his sources.
He said that on Saipan, Noonan was beheaded by the Japanese and Earhart died soon after from dysentery and other ailments.
Kinney and many other Earhart enthusiasts believe her plane was dumped into a giant pit in Saipan along with Japanese aircraft by US marines in the aftermath of World War Two. The pit is under a runway that is still being used. One researcher is trying to get permission to unearth the planes.
Then there was Thomas E. Devine, who served in a postal Army unit who spoke of a letter from the daughter of a Japanese police official who claimed her father was responsible for Amelia’s execution. 
Photographs have also emerged over the years claiming to show Amelia in captivity - but these have been found to be fraudulent or to have been taken before she began her flight.
There are also the claims of U.S. troops who landed on Saipan after the war went on to insist they found a safe which, after it was blown open, was found to contain a briefcase filled with Amelia’s flying documents. Another claim, more dubious, tells of the discovery of her documents in a cave on Saipan.
Possibilities: If the duo are right, Earhart and Noonan were more than 850 miles off course. They were meant to land on Howland Island (centre), although others suspect they could have crashed nearer Gardner Island (bottom, far right). It would give credence to the idea they were taken to Japanese base at Saipan (top left)
Possibilities: If the duo are right, Earhart and Noonan were more than 850 miles off course. They were meant to land on Howland Island (centre), although others suspect they could have crashed nearer Gardner Island (bottom, far right). It would give credence to the idea they were taken to Japanese base at Saipan (top left)
Route: Earhart was trying to become the first woman to fly around the world - starting in Oakland on May 20
Route: Earhart was trying to become the first woman to fly around the world - starting in Oakland on May 20
Not impossible: Many said it would be impossible to reach Mili in Earhart's plane, but Spink claims this fuel report proves it would have been possible - lending more credence to their claims
Not impossible: Many said it would be impossible to reach Mili in Earhart's plane, but Spink claims this fuel report proves it would have been possible - lending more credence to their claims
Eyewitnesses: There are also a number of eyewitness accounts, including islanders who said they watched Earhart land to the right of where the research boat (circled) is moored
Eyewitnesses: There are also a number of eyewitness accounts, including islanders who said they watched Earhart land to the right of where the research boat (circled) is moored
More hints: These wheels could have been used by the Japanese to take the plane off the island - it would have originally had a wooden platform in the middle, but it has rotten away
More hints: These wheels could have been used by the Japanese to take the plane off the island - it would have originally had a wooden platform in the middle, but it has rotten away
But how would all this have been kept quiet for some many years? 
Kinney and Spink believe politics, national security and even Japanese loss of face all play their part in the failure for Earhart's fate to be exposed by the U.S. and Japan.
‘At the time, cultural attitudes in Japan placed great emphasis on “saving face”,’ Kinney told MailOnline. ‘The Japanese aversion to being humiliated would not allow an announcement Earhart had been found even if only a few days had elapsed since her discovery on Mili atoll.
‘No less a factor was the rise of Japanese militancy. In the 1930s, the Japanese military considered the United States an enemy and would have quickly concluded, whether it was true or not, that Amelia Earhart had been sent on a spy mission.’
That mission, he said, would likely have been an assessment of whether the Japanese were militarily fortifying the Marshall Islands.
What's more, he believes the U.S. knew within a few weeks that Earhart and Noonan were in the custody of the Japanese but could do nothing.
‘If they had, the Japanese would have known the U.S. had broken their closely-guarded military and diplomatic codes. The U.S. decided Earhart would become expendable.’ 
But while some will be quick to dismiss this in particular as the wild rantings of a conspiracy theorist, Kinney, a former U.S. Federal law enforcement agent, believes he has one more piece of evidence in his possession which will prove his claim beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Kinney said that after spending hundreds of hours combing national archives in the US, he unearthed one vital document that ‘would be tough for the government to refute.’ 
He is unwilling to make its contents public yet until his remaining investigations are complete. 
Prisoners: Earhart, pictured arriving in Southampton, is said to have been taken from Mili Atoll by the Japanese, who - in some accounts - executed Noonan before she died of dysentery on Saipan
Prisoners: Earhart, pictured arriving in Southampton, is said to have been taken from Mili Atoll by the Japanese, who - in some accounts - executed Noonan before she died of dysentery on Saipan
Artifacts: These are other pieces of metal found on Mili. Most have been discounted as not coming from Earhart's plane, but the long piece of metal on the left may be significant
Artifacts: These are other pieces of metal found on Mili. Most have been discounted as not coming from Earhart's plane, but the long piece of metal on the left may be significant
Dedicated: Spink, in his workshop in Washington State, has spent thousands of dollars to prove his theory
Dedicated: Spink, in his workshop in Washington State, has spent thousands of dollars to prove his theory
Kinney has also relied heavily on an account of the discovery of what is said to have been Amelia’s briefcase on Saipan - a discovery made in July 1944 by U.S. Marine Robert Wallack.
After American troops landed on Saipan, Wallack was part of a team ordered to blow up a Japanese safe.
Inside, he has claimed, he found a briefcase that contained Amelia’s navigational gear, her passport, maps and other personal documents. He gave the briefcase to a high-ranking naval officer on the beach.
‘In my opinion,’ Kinney told MailOnline, ‘the briefcase was sent back to Washington, D.C., some time in late July or August of 1944. It most likely went to the White House and then on to some secure storage facility of the Navy. There is a good chance it later was destroyed.’
It was also in 1944, he says, that two Marine privates, on orders from a watchful Marine Intelligence officer, dug up a grave outside an old Catholic cemetery on Saipan. The skeletal remains of two people were thrown into a canister. 
The Japanese would have known the U.S. had broken their closely-guarded military and diplomatic codes. The U.S. decided Earhart would become expendable.
Les Kinney 
‘When the two privates asked what they were doing, the intelligence officer replied “Have you ever heard of Amelia Earhart?”’
Kinney added that in 1968, four researchers from Cleveland dug up the same grave and unearthed 189 bone fragments. Years later, with the advent of DNA, the researchers tried to retrieve the bones from the archaeological museum where they had been stored - but they were missing. 
‘Officials at the museum have no idea what happened to the bones,’ said Kinney.
Kinney, who has been investigating the Earhart mystery for 27 years, dismisses the competing theory that Amelia crashed on Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro, while trying to reach her intended destination on Howland Island.
He insisted ‘she didn’t make it - for whatever reason, Earhart missed Howland island from the west and continued in a north-easterly direction.’
Many say the distance to Mili would have been impossible for the Electra to cover.
But Kinney and Spink, a 53-year-old American science teacher who has spent thousands of dollars of his own money investigating the Earhart disappearance, believe it was possible. 
They insist that because Earhart had extra fuel tanks on board the plane she had ample fuel to make it - and Kinney has uncovered a Lockheed fuel study which he said proves she could have made it.
And his belief is backed up by contemporary accounts from the islands that they have collected on their visit. 
Kinney told MailOnline: ‘After leaving Lae, New Guinea, Earhart must have landed at Mili atoll just after 10am local time. The tidal charts for that time and date indicate the tide was beginning to recede.
‘Two Marshallese eyewitnesses to Earhart’s landing, fishing not far away, said two people left the plane in a small yellow boat.’
They add that numerous people in the Marshall Islands have told them of seeing the two fliers on Mili island before they were captured by the Japanese and taken on board the tramp steamer, the Koshu Maru.
The damaged Electra plane was loaded onto a barge and towed behind the Koshu Maru to two other atolls before mooring at Saipan.   
Expendable: Some people also believe the Americans knew Earhart (pictured 1937) had been taken prisoner
Expendable: Some people also believe the Americans knew Earhart (pictured 1937) had been taken prisoner
Abandoned: Despite being a hero, she was left to her fate as the Japanese believed she was a spy, it's claimed
Abandoned: Despite being a hero, she was left to her fate as the Japanese believed she was a spy, it's claimed
Spink said he had been told by many people that local Bilimon Amram, who was half-Japanese and working as a medic on Jaluit atoll - one of the atolls the Koshu Maru stopped at to refuel - had claimed he treated Noonan for a leg injury.
‘Everyone told me Bilimon bandaged Fred’s infected leg,’ said Spink, accounts that also convinced him that the two Americans had been picked up on Mili Atoll. 
What's more, the men and other members of the Mili expedition found a number of pieces of metal they thought could have been part of a plane - discoveries made more compelling by the fact there were no other planes on the small island and no air battles had been fought overhead or close by.
But one of these pieces, thought to be from an auxiliary power unit, has since been discounted.
So the two men and the rest of the investigating team now pin their hopes on two remaining pieces. The first is the corroded circle they hope may have been the dust shield that fitted over the brake assembly of a GoodYear wheel.
The second is the thin piece of metal they believe is part of the wheel well of the plane.  
It is being tested, along with other pieces, by metals giant Alcoa and aviation firm Parker Aerospace who are comparing their chemical elements to those of contemporary aircraft. 
The official held belief is that the aircraft is 'on the bottom of the Pacific', 18,000 feet down but close to Howland, said Tom Crouch, senior curator at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum. 
In the meantime, Spink still clings to his memory of the extraordinary moment that led to today’s possible breakthrough in the Earhart mystery - a moment during a party with friends in the Marshall Islands.
‘Didn’t Amelia Earhart disappear in this part of the world?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ a local man answered. ‘She landed on our island and my uncle watched her for two days.’ 
* At dawn on August 4, 1944, the 2,295-ton Koshu Maru, carrying air base supplies, was hit by four US torpedoes in the Makassar Strait and sank immediately with the loss of 273 passengers, 28 crew members and gunners and 1,239 Javanese labourers. 


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3139044/Are-bits-metal-proof-Amelia-Earhart-died-captured-Japanese-remote-Pacific-atoll-U-S-government-KNEW-covered-up.html#ixzz3eb9qfcJj
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Monday

The Latest from Aviation Week on Science and the Electra pieces found on Mili Atoll

Aviation week weighs in on the evidence from the Paris air show.

http://aviationweek.com/paris-air-show-2015/will-disappearance-amelia-earhart-be-scientifically-explained-long-last

Purdue Archives


"Will Disappearance Of Amelia Earhart Be Scientifically Explained At Long Last?"

Paul Jackson Jun 15, 2015

Parker Aerospace has funded a scientific investigation into one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. Will the disappearance of Amelia Earhart be scientifically explained at long last?

The word “closure” did not have its present meaning when, on July 2, 1937, renowned aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific while flying a Lockheed 10E Electra on a world circumnavigation attempt. For 78 years, theories ranging from the mundane to the bizarre have surrounded the tragedy but, at last, an answer based on irrefutable science might be about to settle the matter beyond reasonable dispute.

A recent expedition to the Pacific by non-profit Amelia Research, Inc., was sponsored by Parker Hannifin Corporation (Hall 5, C210) and accompanied by Jon Jeffery, its Aerospace division’s director of technology and business development. Jeffery told ShowNews, “Parker is involved with many charitable events to promote engineering and aerospace interest in the world (and) saw this as an opportunity to help resolve a longstanding mystery from an engineering-based approach. Parker has a long history of helping solve difficult problems purely for the benefit of mankind.”

(That expedition included Mike Harris, Les Kinney, Dick Spink and Jim Hayton from these pages.)

Lending dimensions to the enormity of the recent search task, one theory has Earhart and Noonan leaving Lae in Papua New Guinea and then running out of fuel near Gardner Island, 420 miles south of their intended destination of Howland Island. However, the Parker reconnaissance was in Mili Atoll, specifically Endrikin, one of its 92 component islands. This is 850 miles northwest of Howland – a not inconsiderable change of focus.

Why the new target? Explained Jeffery, “There were eyewitness reports from many native Marshallese citizens who observed the landing and were involved in helping the Japanese in moving the aircraft across the island to load it onto a Japanese ship for transportation to Saipan.” (The Marshalls were a Japanese possession between the World Wars, and there is even a claim that Earhart and Noonan survived and were taken to a Japanese hospital on nearby Jaluit Atoll.)

(Specifically, an island elder recalled that the Japanese had ordered the islanders to help them move the plane off the atoll.  As reported here earlier, Andrew Bryce, a WWII Veteran from Denver, reported that during WWII a stevedore he worked on Majuro claimed that he had helped move the place from Mili onto a Japanese barge which took the plane to a Japanese ship docked in Majuro (which was then seen in Jaluit by many eyewitnesses.)  Veteran Andrew Bryce, who was interviewed about his experiences, is the brother of Douglas Bryce, who saw the Electra in a hangar on Saipan during WWII when he was a radio repairman.)

The expedition was prompted by Amelia Research’s discovery in 2014 of metal items which could have been from a Lockheed. The Parker project team arrived in January 2015 to follow-up with more sophisticated searching equipment.

An area 75 x 300 feet has yielded two small aluminum plates, one with some red paint, which was the color of the trim on Earhart’s aircraft, plus other metal items, at least one matching a component of an Electra’s wheel-well. Jeffery’s team of laboratory specialists is now examining the chemical “signature” of the metal and hopes to be able to present its findings later this summer.

Courtesy Dick Spink - piece found on Mili

Jim Hayton demonstrates where this other piece fit on the Electra

For more positive identification, says Jeffery, “the team gathered parts from another Lockheed Electra from the same time period; parts from a Japanese “Zero” fighter and “Betty” bomber; and parts from a 1946 Piper J3 Cub, to compare and show differences.  Also, the team may have access to paint and aluminum samples that is confirmed from Amelia's aircraft”.

The last remark refers to part of the starboard engine nacelle that was removed during an earlier accident repair. The paint’s chemical structure will be a further reality-check, for it must be remembered that U.S.-made aluminum was exported to Japan until an embargo was imposed at the end of 1939.

Parker Aerospace is performing the role of detective, not judge or jury. After its scientists’ findings are disclosed, it will be up to officials of Amelia Research, and others, to weigh the facts and arrive at a decision. “Parker currently doesn't have any plans for further sponsorship beyond supporting verification of the parts came from the Earhart aircraft,” notes Jeffery.

But someone else does. This very month, a different group of historians is on Gardner Island (now known as Nikumaroro) to search for wreckage just offshore, as well as evidence of a castaways’ campsite, hoping to substantiate an alternative theory. Signs are it’s going to be a busy few months for Earhart followers.

The initiative by Parker Hannifin may, or may not, silence the incorrigible conspiracy theorists and achieve public “closure” but, at least, the responsible authorities in Washington, DC, might be able to close their dusty files. At the FAA, for example, the N-number of Earhart’s Electra (16020) is on the “permanently reserved” list in her name, thus unavailable for reissue to another aircraft, as would be usual.

And at the National Air and Space Museum, Tom D. Crouch, senior curator, has declared that the Electra is “on the bottom of the Pacific” 18,000 feet down, tantalizingly close to its destination at Howland. Endrikin or Gardner desert island landings are, therefore, dismissed by a government-funded entity not accustomed to being contradicted.

(Elgen Long also believes her Electra crashed in the ocean. However, he told me point blank that he would be "thrilled" if it turned out that these pieces are from her Electra. Stay tuned.)

If Parker’s public-spirited sponsorship and technical analysis proves the Museum’s unsupported assertion to be 18,005 feet in vertical error, not to mention over 850 miles horizontally askew, it will have been money well spent."

Closure (Photo Purdue Archives)


Tuesday

National Geographic finally weighs in on Dick Spink's discovery

Finally! National Geographic on the right flight path. We spoke with the author of this article extensively back in November of 2014, and then most recently when they had the meeting he's reporting. For all intents and purposes (according to our NTSB expert) Amelia Earhart's Electra has been found... at least where it came down... and now, we'll just have to show everyone where it's buried. 
 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150528-amelia-earhart-spink-marshall-islands-aviation/

Important to note; we are not interested in who or what or why or how these events occurred.  We are not interested in talking about the theories of how she wound up on Mili Atoll.

We are passionate about finding out the truth of what happened to Amelia Earhart to honor her sacrifice for the nation.  And that is, at its core, what happened to her.  

She made an incredible landing on an atoll, not something many pilots could do.  Why was she so far off course? We don't know.  We can guess that it's because she wasn't "over" Howland when she radioed she was - in fact she was 250 miles north west of the Howland.  

But we don't know that for a fact. But we do know that she came down in Mili Atoll.

We do know she was picked up by the Japanese and transported to Saipan. That her plane and Fred Noonan went with her. 

We do know that the plane was put in a hangar on Aslito airfield. That's where it was found in June of 44. We do know that she was incarcerated and died on Saipan.

There are multiple reports about how she died. But how she died doesn't reflect on how she lived.  She lived with courage, and because of who she was - an American pilot flying in the wrong part of the Pacific - she wound up in Japanese hands.

We don't know how much she suffered, or if she suffered. We do know that people in the US knew she was there. We do know that US Marines were asked to look for her. We do know that her briefcase was found, and then her plane.

And the Electra was destroyed by US forces not long after that.  We have multiple eyewitnesses, both islanders and US Marines.  

The results of these tests will be at the end of July, early August. And that will not be the end of the story of what happened to her - it will be the beginning of the end of the story.  She deserves closure, and we are determined to help her achieve it.  Read the article below, from the National Geographic website, written by David Lande:


"One Man’s Dogged Search for Amelia Earhart"

One Man’s Dogged Search for Amelia Earhart
Teacher has spent $50K trying to prove the aviator didn’t crash into the Pacific -- and instead landed on a tiny island.


Picture of Amelia Earhart standing in front of the Lockheed Electra plane

Internationally famous as a trouser-clad, tousle-haired, female flier, Amelia Earhart stands in front of the Lockheed Electra she hoped to fly around the world. With only 7,000 miles to go on the 29,000-mile journey, she and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, and disappeared over a vast stretch of the Pacific Ocean. 
PHOTOGRAPH BY SSPL, GETTY

By David Lande, National Geographic 
PUBLISHED MAY 28, 2015
5
At a gathering of researchers near Seattle, a piece of Amelia Earhart’s plane is reverently passed hand-to-hand around a conference table. The authenticity of the artifact is undisputed—a rarity in the contentious world of Earhart aficionados. It was removed from Earhart’s Lockheed Electra during a repair job in the spring of 1937, and a forward-thinking mechanic rescued it from a trash bin. Just a few months later, Earhart and her Electra would be lost in an attempted round-the-world flight.


What happened to Amelia Earhart? Depends on whom you ask. Some say it’s obvious: She ran out of gas over a vast stretch of the Pacific, splashed into the water, and vanished. Others say she landed and eventually died on an island now called Nikumaroro, some 350 miles (563 kilometers) south of her intended refueling stop on Howland Island.

But a 53-year-old high school science teacher from Washington State named Dick Spink believes a different theory: Her plane set down in the Marshall Islands, far off course, on a tiny atoll named Mili.


Picture of a scrap of metal from the Lockheed Electra plane

After sustaining heavy damage in a failed takeoff attempt from Hawaii, Earhart’s Lockheed was repaired in California in the spring of 1937. A mechanic saved this original section of aluminum skin from the airplane’s horizontal stabilizer. 
(Photo by Richard Martini)

“The world needs to know this,” Spink says. “I heard a consistent story from too many people in the Marshalls to dismiss it. They say, ‘She landed at Mili. Our uncles and aunts, our parents, and our grandparents know she landed here.’ ”

The Marshallese accounts were so convincing that Spink has spent $50,000 of his own money searching for the spot where Earhart landed. He contends that the islanders’ stories will be borne out by scientific proof.

Which is why these eight researchers—including engineers, metallurgists, and aircraft technicians—are gathered around a conference table and joined via teleconference by two scientists from Alcoa, original supplier of the aluminum used in Earhart’s plane.

After examining the authentic piece, the group passes around a half-dozen other parts—jagged, weathered, and corroded aluminum sealed in bags like evidence from a crime scene. Some are still encrusted with sand and bits of coral from the Marshalls, where they were found recently. One still has a hint of reddish paint—perhaps a faded match to the reddish-orange trim of Earhart’s plane.



Picture of Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands
Some researchers believe crescent-shaped Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands is where Amelia Earhart landed in desperation after failing to locate her intended fuel stop at Howland Island, some 800 miles to the southeast. 


Putting the pieces together

Dick Spink isn’t the originator of the Marshall Islands theory. It first came to global attention during the 1960s with the publication of Paul Briand’s book Daughter of the Sky, as well as CBS correspondent Fred Goerner’s The Search for Amelia Earhart. (The fascination with Earhart continues; a crew trying to fly a solar-powered plane around the world is planning to embark on what it calls the “Earhart leg” of its trip, across the unforgiving Pacific.)

Goerner’s book—a bible of sorts to many Marshall Islands believers—argues that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were taken prisoner by the Japanese after landing in the Marshalls and transported by ship to Saipan, where they died in captivity.

Spink counts himself among Goerner’s disciples, but he didn’t come to faith by reading his book. In fact, he hadn’t read anything about Earhart when he first traveled to the Marshall Islands for a sideline business venture. “I just assumed everyone believed that she disappeared when she sank in the ocean,” he says.

Then, three years ago, Spink was having dinner with Marshallese friends when he asked an innocent question: “Didn’t Amelia Earhart disappear in this part of the world?” A local man answered: “Yes, she landed on our island, and my uncle watched her for two days.”

Dick Spink, Jim Hayton, Rich Martini, Mike Harris


Spink’s first reaction was to laugh, but he stopped abruptly when he realized the man wasn’t joking. After that, wherever he traveled in the Marshalls, he kept hearing the same story. “So many people said the same thing,” he says. “It’s become part of Marshallese history and culture.”

What began as serendipity became a pursuit for Spink. He interviewed dozens of Marshallese natives, pressing for specifics until he pinpointed a stretch of rough coral shore where two fishermen had claimed they saw Earhart land. Her plane, losing parts as it bounced over the coral, was later dragged to a Japanese transport ship.

Spink has never solicited financial help for his pursuits. But through connections with a company called Parker Aerospace, his quest received a major boost. This year Parker funded an expedition that brought sophisticated equipment to bear on the search area in the Marshalls.

Parker manufactured fittings for the fuel systems of nearly all aircraft made in the 1920s and 30s, including Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis and Earhart’s Electra.

Jon Jeffery, a Parker representative who accompanied Spink on the January expedition, says, “When we found that our company had made parts for Earhart’s Electra, that got Parker management excited, and they made the decision to invest in the project.”

Photo: Purdue University



Too Many Miles, Too Little Fuel?
Others haven’t been so supportive. Many Earhart enthusiasts dismiss the Marshalls theory as outlandish. Elgen Long, a retired pilot who spent decades researching Earhart’s disappearance, believes in the splashed-and-sank theory.

“The plane would’ve had to float a long way” to reach the Marshall Islands, quips Long. For him, the answer to the mystery rests under 17,000 feet of ocean.

(BLOG AUTHOR NOTE: Elgen Long told me he'd be "glad if it's true" when I spoke to him just prior to flying up to meet Dick Spink and to examine the piece.  What Elgen Long said, along with the man who owns the original piece of the Electra said, was that the expedition to Nikumaroro to find her plane was "not real." (They both used stronger language, but I'd prefer to let them speak for themselves on the topic. )


Fred Patterson, a World Airways pilot for 25 years who also owned two Electras, shares Long’s opinion. “There’s just no way she made it to the Marshall Islands,” he says. “I’ve done some long-range flying in that airplane myself, and I know exactly what it burns per hour.”

Patterson, Long, and many others in their camp argue that radio transmissions place Earhart near her intended destination of Howland Island when she uttered “gas is running low.” The distance from Howland to Mili Atoll is 800 miles—nearly four and a half hours away at the Electra’s cruising speed.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) argues that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro Island, closer to Howland. (For more on this theory, see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141104-amelia-earhart-forensic-photo-spectral-imaging-analysis/)

Both Alcoa and Parker are analyzing the pieces recovered from the Marshall Islands to determine whether the metal and paint match Earhart’s plane.

For his part, Spink remains confident that he’s on the right path—guided, it seems, by the ill-fated aviatrix herself.


“So many weird things have happened,” he says. “I feel like the key to the Earhart mystery has just been handed to me. It’s kind of creepy, almost as if Amelia is saying, ‘Here, go with this.’ ”



Friday

Waiting for the results of the forensic tests...

Just a note to say we're still waiting on the forensic tests being done on the over dozen pieces recovered from Mili Atoll.

Two of the pieces have been examined by a forensic aviation expert, and he believes they are from the Electra.



Recently, members of the team that went to Mili, including a former Federal investigator, a former United Pilot who owns an actual piece of the Electra, Dick Spink who found the pieces, and forensic expert Jim Hayton met with representatives from the company that sponsored the trip to Mili - Parker Aviation, along with a reporter from National Geographic Magazine, and representatives from Alcoa who will be able to determine in their labs the exact amount of aluminum found in the various pieces.  


One of these hangars may have been where they found the plane,
which resembled this burnt out plane on the runway.

I'm told that some pieces from Japanese airplanes were also brought for testing (not recovered at Mili Atoll, as it was not the site of any aerial battles in WWII) and they will be used for comparison.
Amelia being thorough as usual.
To reiterate, Mike Harris went to the Marshalls in the 1980's and interviewed a number of people who claimed to have seen Earhart or hear that she had landed in Mili Atoll.  Harris and crew returned to Mili and this time interviewed a local man who recalled when the Japanese ordered 40 island men to help them "move the Electra" from where it had come down onto a barge.


A Marshallese man who tended to her wounds, interviewed by Harris in 1980.
His business associate is interviewed in the footage below attesting to his honesty.

The tools used to transport the plane at that time have also been recovered.


There is no rail track on Mili, but these rail cars were apparently used to move the plane
In the following clip are first person accounts from a number of sources.  This footage was shot by Richard Martini along with Mike Harris on Saipan in early 2014.  In the footage, a number of new people come forward to speak about their memories of her arrival on Saipan.  It includes an interview with a business associate of Bilimon Amaron, who said that he tended to Ms. Earhart and Mr. Noonan's wounds when their plane was hoisted onto the Kyoshu in dock in Jaluit.


Ms. Blanco saw Amelia and Fred come ashore, and told the same to Fred Goerner, CBS news man in 1964
There's an interview with the woman that Fred Goerner originally spoke to back in 1964 where she spoke of seeing Amelia and Fred Noonan being brought ashore.  Josephine Blanco. She recounts that story in detail in the longer version of this footage.

There are interviews with various people from Saipan - the son of a nurse who tended to her wounds in a hospital on Saipan, as well as others who saw or heard of her presence there.  
The hospital on Saipan where she was tended to by a Saipanese nurse
And finally, interviews with the US Marines who found her briefcase, who found the Electra parked in a hangar at Aslito airfield in 1944.  And with servicemen who saw the plane burned by US forces.


Nabers decoded the messages for commander Louis Wallace. He says he decoded one
that said "We have found AE's plane Aslito field." He was ordered to guard the plane for 24 hours
and let no one in.  Some soldiers tried to get in, and there's an interview with one of the soldiers who overheard
that argument. (Thomas E Devine). Mr. Nabers also decoded the message that announced they would
fly the plane, and finally the message where they said they were going to destroy it.  He claims
he went to the field and watched as it burned. His account is corroborated by others who witnessed
the same event.

Here's the an hour long documentary (from Richard Martini) that includes footage from the US Marines mentioned above:


This webpage examines the eyewitness accounts and other evidence that shows Amelia and Fred were arrested and taken to Saipan. There were over 200 individuals who claimed they saw her, this site examines who they were, and what they heard or saw. It includes details of evidence the Electra was found on Saipan, interviews with people who saw her and the Electra before and after they were taken to Saipan. Interviews with over two dozen Saipanese who claim they saw her there and over a dozen US Marines who claim they found the Electra, her passport, briefcase and other details.

EYEWITNESS REPORTS

THE EYEWITNESS REPORTS VIDEO IS NOW .99 CENTS

Eyewitness Accounts: Published

EYEWITNESS: THE AMELIA EARHART INCIDENT BY THOMAS E DEVINE WITH RICHARD M DALEY

Pg 40. “Glancing out on the runway ramp.. an area not the main part of Aslito Field, but an extended arm of the airstrip at the southwest corner… Near an embankment was (AE’s plane). (LATER) .. a muffled explosion at Aslito Field erupted into a large flash fire… I crouched and crawled toward the airfield. When I could see what was burning, I was aghast! The twin engine plane was engulfed in flames! I could not see anyone by the light of the fire… in July 1944.”

THE SEARCH FOR AMELIA EARHART BY FRED GOERNER

Goerner gathers dozens of eyewitnesses to Earhart’s incarceration and second hand info about her execution.

AMELIA EARHART: LAST FLIGHT

Amelia reveals she did not know Morse code (and neither did Fred Noonan)

AMELIA EARHART:HER LAST FLIGHT

By OLIVER KNAGSS

South African journalist gathers numerous eyewitnesses at Mili, Majuro and Jaluit. There is footage of these interviews, but it exists somewhere in Miami – still trying to locate the negative.

AMELIA EARHART: THE MYSTERY SOLVED By ELGEN M LONG AND MARIE K LONG

Elgen shows how the original plan devised by radio man Harry Manning was adhered to by the Coast Guard Itasca – they didn’t know Manning got off the plane in Hawaii and wasn’t on the electra. So 90% of all their communication was in Morse code – something neither AE or FN knew.

“WITH OUR OWN EYES – EYEWTINESSES TO THE FINAL DAYS OF AMELIA EARHART” MIKE CAMPBELL WITH THOMAS E DEVINE

PG 32. Robert Sosbe, 1st battalion 20th Marines, 4th marine division) Sosbe said he saw the Electra before and during its destruction) “on or about D+5 after our infantry had captured Alsito, the night before, then were driven off, only to capture it again, our Co was called up to fill a gap between our infantry and the 27th Army infantry. The trucks carrying us stopped off the opposite side of the runway from the hangars and tower about 3 to 5 hundred yds. This two engine airplane was pulled from the hangar to off the runway where it was engulfed in flames from one end to the other. I can still remember exactly the way it burned, how the frame and ribs because it was visible. It was about half dark. It burned approximately 15-30 minutes.”

Same page: a letter from Earskine Nabers: “I am seeking Marines who were placed on duty at Aslito to guard a padlocked hangar containing AE’s plane. The hangar was not one of those located along the runway. It was located near what may have been a Japanese administration building, and an unfinished hangar at the tarmac, in the southwest corner of the airfield.

The follow up letter (pg 33)

…”we had to get Col. Clarence R Wallace to sign all the messages that came through the message center.) Hq 8th moved back to bivouac area. I was dropped off at the Hangar for guard duty at the main road that went by west side of hangar. The road that went out to hangar, I was placed on the right side, just as it left the main road….

Pg 34 The best I can recall the plane was pulled on the field by a jeep.. the plane was facing north after the plane was parked and jeep moved. A plane came over real low and on the next pass he strafed the plane and it went up in a huge fireball. (We were sitting on the west side of the airfield about one hundred yards from the plane. We were on higher ground. As far as I remember, the (men) that pulled the plane on the field and us guys from H & S 8th were the only ones there.”

Pg 36 Marine Capt Earl Ford of Fallbrook, CA, artillery master sgt with 2nd Marines. Interview 6-7-88 by Paul Cook. “The aircraft was about 100 yards (from me) maybe less. We all saw it. No way we could miss it. A civilian twin engine. No way it was military. American aircraft in civil registration… some officers were saying it was Amelia’s… it had only two windows on the side, back here.”

Arthur Nash, Air Corps Corps, P47 group on Aslito. Claims he saw the plane on July 4, 1944 (book says 1945, must be a misprint based on following) pg 40:

“After landing on Isley.. at 2:30 pm, Japanese soldiers were running around the airstrip, one killed himself in the cockpit of a P47D with a grenade…” I slept fairly well (in the hangar) and (in the morning) wandered over to a large hole in the hangar wall facing the other hangar. The hangar floor and the area between the hangars was littered with debris, displace with siding from the hangars, maybe 65 yards apart, but close enough to get a good look at a familiar aircraft outside the other hangar. My eyesight was acute and what I saw was Amelia Earhart’s airplane!... the next morning I went over to see it but it was gone.”

Jerrell Chatham, 1st platoon, I company, 3rd regiment, 2nd marine deivions: “I was driving trucks .. on Saipan… when we went ashore I saw the hangar where Amelia Earhart’s plane was stored, I also saw the plane in the air. They told us not to go close to the airplane hangar and we did not…”

Pg 44: Howard Ferris, US Marines: “Sent to Saipan for guard dutey… an old hangar structure at end of a runway. This hangar was not large,.. small trees in front of big doors.. (then he recounts the same Marine argument that Devine and Nabers recount – where some Navy brass attempted to get in, but a Marine (Nabers) refused them entry.)” Howard was not present at the fire, but one of his buddies was. The buddy said a truck arrived with many gas cans and the guards saturated the entire hangar.. and it burned totally.

Pg 50 Robert Sowash, 23rd regiment 4th Marines Division: “I saw a plane in a building that was not a military plane.. I remember other Marines saying it was the same as Earhart’s. Later the place was cordoned off..”

Pete Leblanc, 121st Naval CB’s, 4th Marine division: “some of our guys were sneaking over towards the airfield to try and see (AE’s plane). We heard there were guards there. Then it was burned up later.”

AMELIA EARHART: LOST LEGEND - DONALD MOYER WILSON

Over 200 eyewitnesses as gathered by all the different authors with the various reports of her landing on Mili, being brought to Jaluit and incarcerated in Garapan prison.