Conspiracy Theories: Gone Without a Trace

The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Conspiracy+Theories%3A+Gone+Without+a+Trace

Caroline R, Borders, Staff/Writer

Ameila Earhart, that name sounds familiar I am sure, and if you are like me then you have looked up and read countless facts and theories about her disappearance. If you have no clue who or what I’m talking about then I promise by the end of this article you will be just a little more educated on the famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart. 

Hi, welcome to a new conspiracy theory series I am writing for your enjoyment and entertainment. My name is Caroline Borders (as I am sure you saw listed as the writer of this article), I am OBSESSED with conspiracies, unsolved murders, disappearances, and much more. These series will unpack some of the most popular conspiracies, disappearances, and murders to present the simple facts, evidence, and (of course) my educated opinion. 

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, disappeared on July 2, 1932, and was declared dead on January 5, 1939, but no body and no plane was ever found. That right there is what baffles me, she just disappeared into thin air with almost no evidence of what happened. 

Now, I should probably go back a couple steps and tell you what got her to this point. Earhart was a female aviator and was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic ocean, she decided that she wanted to accomplish more, so she mapped out a flight path to take the “Trip Around The World”. This trip was a 29,000 mile flight that she never got to complete. 

July 2, 1932, 22,000 miles done, 7,000 to go, Earhart takes off from New Guinea on her way to Howland island with co-pilot Fred Noonan.  After around 19 hours into this flight she radios to the U.S. coast guard ship, “We must be on you but cannot see you– but gas in running low.” The two then could not receive any transmissions from the ship and at 8:43 a.m., Earhart panicky radioed, “We are on the line 157 337… we are running on line north and south.”  She and Noonan were never seen or heard from again, searches were conducted but no bodies or plane parts were ever found. The two quite literally disappeared into thin air. 

But, if no plane and no bodies were ever found then what happened? Where did they go? Why is there no evidence? Did they actually survive? Two human beings can’t just disappear without a trace, the world doesn’t work like that. So, I took it upon myself to look up what other people think happened to Earhart and Noonan. There are three different theories that I decided to tell you about: the crash-and-sink theory, the castaway theory, and the captured-by-the-Japanese theory. 

The crash- and-sink theory is the theory that most people have come to accept. The title pretty much gives it away, but the idea is that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and ended up crashing into the Atlantic Ocean and perishing. Now, this theory is probably the easiest to believe since it makes a lot of sense..right? Wrong. Actually, it doesn’t make much sense at all when you really think about it. The weeks after the pilot’s disappearance, the ocean was heavily searched for remains, but nothing came up: no plane, no bodies or bones, absolutely nothing. Even if their bodies were eaten by animals, a plane or parts from the plane would have been found. This theory, although greatly accepted by citizens, is most likely not what happened (in my personal, and professional opinion). 

Another top contender is the theory that Earhart was held prisoner on the island of Saipan. This theory suggests that Earhart was captured and executed by the empire of Japan in Saipan, both governments knew about the execution and have been lying about the disappearance ever since. Now, this theory has a personal account from a man whose uncle worked at the prison that Earhart and Noonan were held before their deaths. William “Bill” Sablan told Pacific Daily News that in 1961, he was talking to his uncle and other family members about his dreams to become a pilot when Earhart and Noonan were mentioned by his uncle, Tun Akin Tuho. Tuho proceeded to describe the American man and woman that were supposedly taken to Saipan by ship in the 1930s. Sablan’s uncle remembered the two because caucasion people were very rare to see in Saipan and that their arrival caused an uproar in the normally quiet prison. According to Tuho, the two were in prison for two or three days before they were executed. This theory is a little far fetched in my opinion but the government does hide a lot of information from the citizens, it’s really hard for me to say if this is even a possible fate. 

Cast-aways, a term that suggests that people are stuck on an island or rural place without anyone knowing, left to fend for themselves. The theory claims that Earhart and Noonan the pair landed the plane on Nikumaroro Island which is 350 miles from Howland Island. In later years scientists found a skull and bones that they believed (at the time) were from a man but these bones were reinterpreted and it is now believed that they belonged to a woman (of Earhart’s height) of Europeon descent. This theory is highly plausible but still does not explain where on earth their plane went, planes cannot just disappear. 

In conclusion, I still have no clue what the true fate of Ameila Earhart and Fred Noonan, and although science is advancing I do not foresee any answers coming anytime soon. No one will ever know what truly happened to them, and even for me that is hard to accept. Maybe if the plane was found we could get some answers, but I think by now that plane (wherever it was) is gone forever. Some things of this world are left for us to wonder about, I think that the true answers lie in the depths of the ocean, never to be found. 

 

 Information Obtained From: 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/19/amelia-earhart-found-disappearance-theories/1475518001/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/amelia-earhart-disappearance-theories-spd/

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/amelia-earhart

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/man-claims-uncle-amelia-earhart-1937-saipan-article-1.3658703

https://www.biography.com/explorer/amelia-earhart