Amelia Earhart’s fate may not have been as uneventful as living her final days out on a deserted island in front of a campfire with her faithful companion and navigator Fred Noonan. This has been one of the leading theories as to how Earhart and Noonan’s lives ended, that is until now. A new documentary may do away with the theory that Amelia Earhart’s resting place is scattered along the Nikumaroro Island shoreline.
Although a bit gruesome, one of the many theories has to do with Amelia landing on the desolate Nikumaroro island, which is home to the giant dog-size crabs, called coconut crabs. If Amelia Earhart did die on Nikumaroro Island, the world’s largest crabs would have most likely done away with a corpse left out in the elements on that island. These crabs may have then hidden the evidence by scattering the skeletal remains, according to The Science Times.
According to History.com, Sunday night’s special , Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence, offers up new evidence in a photo to one of the theories that have been floating around with the rest of them since the day she went missing 80 years ago. The fate of Amelia Earhart, who was 39 at the time she disappeared, and her navigator, Fred Noonan, has been a mystery for eight decades and one that’s prompted several searches along the remote flight plan Amelia took over the Pacific Ocean. Nikumaroro Island is not too far off that flight plane and the first expedition to that island turned up evidence that someone had been living on that remote island.
More than a dozen expeditions to that island have taken place since Earhart’s ill-fated attempted at flying around the world. With each expedition, more evidence had turned up suggesting she and Noonan may have lived their final days out on Nikumaroro Island, but there was never enough evidence to turn the theory into a fact.
Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has had many interested parties try to solve this mystery, but it wasn’t until someone took another look at an archived photo that something was spotted that might explain what really did happen to Earhart. This new theory suggests that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were captured by the Japanese and taken to a prison camp, according to USA Today.
They were allegedly killed in that prison camp as spies and this new theory, which the documentary will attempt to demonstrate on Sunday night, has the U.S. Government possibly knowing about this and covering it up. While watching Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence on Sunday night, you will hear recollections from witnesses or descendants of the witnesses who say they saw a white man and white woman taken into custody by the Japanese.
They also have eyewitnesses who watched the Japanese bury the bodies of Earhart and Noonan after they were allegedly executed. Two Marines also give their testimony that they were told to dig up the bodies sometime later. The theory has Earhart getting lost and veering off course, landing in the Marshall Islands instead of Howland Island, which is what their flight plan called for.
This new theory has the Japanese taking the two into custody upon landing, and witnesses say they saw the two in Japanese custody on Saipan. The theory looks at this photo recently recovered and a white woman and white man were found in this blurry image, which is seen below. Tonight on the History Channel that fate is going to be explored, along with new evidence that may finally offer the location where Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan lived out their final days.
[Featured Image by Associated Press/AP Images]