It Is Likely That Dozens Of People Heard Amelia Earhart’s Chilling Distress Calls

According to a new paper, dozens of people from across the world heard the final pleas made by Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, after they crashed their plane in 1937.

On July 2, 1937, after Earhart and Noonan’s plane disappeared, an “all ships, all stations” bulletin was issued and authorities asked “anyone with a radio and a trained ear to listen in to the frequencies she had been using on her trip, 3105 and 6210 kilohertz,” according to The Washington Post.

While the radio on board the plane was not designed to be heard outside a few hundred miles, some calls appear to have been heard, according to the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) who “put forth the theory in a paper that analyzes radio distress calls heard in the days after Earhart disappeared.”

In this paper, reports from various locations reveal that as many as a dozen people heard the chilling distress calls from Amelia Earhart. This is thanks to “high harmonic frequencies” which, effectively, skipped off the ionosphere and were miraculously sent long distances.

“Scattered across North America and unknown to each other, each listener was astonished to suddenly hear Amelia Earhart pleading for help. They alerted family members, local authorities or local newspapers. Some were investigated by government authorities and found to be believable. Others were dismissed at the time and only recognized many years later. Although few in number, the harmonic receptions provide an important glimpse into the desperate scene that played out on the reef at Gardner Island.”

A 15-year-old girl listening to the radio in St. Petersburg, Florida, recorded some of what she heard in a distress call: “waters high,” “water’s knee-deep — let me out,” and “help us quick.”

Nina Paxton, from Ashland, Kentucky, also heard snippets of distress calls from Amelia Earhart. At one point, Earhart appears to be describing her location before mentioning a storm front.

“Will have to get out of here, we can’t stay here long,” she explains further.

A housewife in Toronto also heard a distress call where the threat of water was still present.

“We have taken in water… we can’t hold on much longer.”

TIGHAR has theorized that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were only able to access their plane during low tide in an effort to keep water from flooding the engine. As a result of this, distress calls were only made over a few hours each night.

“These active versus silent periods and the fact that the message changes on July 5 and starts being worried about water and then is consistently worried about water after that — there’s a story there,” TIGHAR director Ric Gillespie said.

While some civilians heard Amelia Earhart’s pleas for help, it is reported that members of the military also heard these distress calls.

According to Gillespie, the theory that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan died as castaways and not as a result of their plane crashing into the Pacific Ocean “runs counter” to the U.S. Navy’s official conclusion.

However, this theory, that the duo crashed into the Pacific Ocean, has long been disputed. As previously stated by the Inquisitr, bones found on Gardner Island in 1940 are said to be a 99 percent match for Amelia Earhart, indicating the pair didn’t go down in the Pacific Ocean.