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Did her plane crash into the sea? Was she captured by Japanese soldiers? Was she eaten by giant crabs? Nearly 90 years after her disappearance, new details about the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart could soon come to light.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.President Trump called on the federal government to release all government files on Earhart and her disappearance in the Pacific Ocean.
“I have been asked by many people about the life and times of Amelia Earhart, such an interesting story, and would I consider declassifying and releasing everything about her, in particular, her last, fatal flight!” President Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her.”
Born in 1897, Earhart was one of aviation’s greatest trailblazers. She set numerous records, including becoming the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. However, her legacy is defined by her disappearance on July 2, 1937, during an attempt to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.
Flying with navigator Fred Noonan, Earhart departed Lae in New Guinea en route to the tiny Howland Island for refueling. Their plane vanished along the way. Despite a 16-day search involving 66 aircraft and four ships, no trace of Earhart, Noonan, or the aircraft was ever found.
The puzzling nature of the disappearance has led to endless streams of speculation and conspiracy theories over the decades.
The most orthodox theory says the plane ran out of fuel while trying to locate Howland Island and crashed into the ocean, never to be recovered. Another recurring claim suggests she was captured by Japanese forces expanding across the Pacific at the time. More fringe theories range from Earhart being marooned on a remote island and killed by giant crabs to being abducted by UFOs.
With Trump’s latest move, historians and armchair aviation experts hope long-hidden files may reveal more information about one of the 20th century’s most sensational mysteries.
“If these records shed any light on Earhart’s fate, it is a welcome action for Earhart historians and enthusiasts,” Mindi Love Pendergraft, executive director of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Kansas, told the New York Times.
“It certainly is exciting to think that they could contain new information to solve this mystery, and we can focus more attention on Earhart’s many accomplishments inside and outside of aviation,” said Love Pendergraft.
But let’s not be disingenuous about the timing and context of the announcement: it comes when many are calling on the Trump Administration to release other important federal government files, namely those related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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