Amelia Earhart

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Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

Contents 1 Early life 1.1 A "tomboy" as a girl 1.2 Graduating from high school and enrolling in college 1.3 First flying lesson and pilot's license 2 Aviation career and marriage 2.1 Joins the National Aeronautic Association 2.2 "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?" 2.3 Earhart enters competitive flying 2.4 Marriage to George Putnam 2.5 Transatlantic world record flight 2.6 Solo flights 3 World flight, 1937 3.1 Planning to circumnavigate the globe 3.2 The first attempt for a world flight 3.3 The second attempt for a world flight 3.4 The departure from Lae 3.5 Final approach to Howland Island 3.6 Post loss signals 4 Investigating Earhart's disappearance 4.1 Two week search in the Howland Island area 4.2 Majority view of researchers 5 Myths and conjectures 5.1 Involvement of the Japanese 5.2 Japanese Saipan prison theory 5.3 "Planned disappearance" and paranormal explanations 6 Records 7 Legacy 8 Books by Earhart 9 Popular culture 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Early life

[edit] A "tomboy" as a girl

Earhart was born in her grandfather's home in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia's maternal grandfather was Alfred Otis, a former federal judge and a leading citizen in Atchison who reportedly was not satisfied with her father Edwin's own success as a lawyer, which is said to have contributed to the break up of her family. Some biographers have speculated that this history of disapproval and doubt followed Amelia throughout her childhood as a tomboy and into her adult flying career.

During her childhood, she is said to have spent long hours playing with her little sister Muriel ("Pidge"), along with climbing trees, “belly-slamming” her sled downhill and hunting rats with a rifle. At the age of ten (1907), in Des Moines, Iowa, Amelia saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair. She later described it as “…a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting.”

Amelia was twelve when her father Edwin, by then a railroad executive, was promoted and the family's finances improved. However, it soon became apparent that Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later, in 1914, he was fired from The Rock Island Railroad. Amy Earhart took Amelia and Muriel to Chicago where they lived with friends. She sent the girls to private schools using money from a trust fund set up by her grandfather Alfred.

[edit] Graduating from high school and enrolling in college

Amelia graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1915. She began college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania. During Christmas vacation in 1917, she visited her sister in Toronto, Ontario. World War I had begun and Amelia saw the returning wounded. After receiving training as a nurse's aide, she began work at Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Ontario with the Volunteer Aid Detachment until after the Armistice was signed ending World War I, in November 1918.

By 1919, Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents who had gotten together again in California. Later in Long Beach, she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day, she went on a 10-minute flight.

[edit] First flying lesson and pilot's license

After that ride, she immediately became determined to learn to fly. She drove a truck and worked at the telephone company to earn $1000 for lessons. Earhart had her first flying lessons at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator. To reach the airfield, she had to take the bus to the end of the line and walk four miles. [1] Six months later, she purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "Canary." On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for women pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart was the sixteenth woman to be issued a pilot's license by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).[2]

[edit] Aviation career and marriage

[edit] Joins the National Aeronautic Association

High-altitude flyers made little money. Earhart sold "Canary" and bought a yellow Kissel roadster which she named "the Yellow Peril."

Her parents divorced in 1924 and she drove her mother across the United States in the "Yellow Peril" to Boston, Massachusetts where Amelia found employment as a social worker in 1925. She lived in Medford, Massachusetts

Earhart also became a member of the National Aeronautic Association's Boston chapter, through which she invested a small sum of money into airport construction and the sale of Kinner airplanes in the Boston area. She also wrote local newspaper columns on flying and, as her local celebrity grew, she helped market Kinner airplanes, promote flying and encourage women pilots. According to the Boston Globe, she was, "one of the best women pilots in the United States," although this characterization has been somewhat disputed by aviation experts and experienced pilots in the decades since.^[1]

[edit] "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England, expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding the trip was too perilous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

The project coordinators who included book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam interviewed Amelia and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger. The team departed Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland in a Fokker F7 on June 17, 1928, landing at Burry Port (nr. Llanelli), Wales, United Kingdom, approximately 21 hours later.

She did not pilot the plane during the flight and, when interviewed after landing, admitted "Stultz did all the flying- had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She resolved to address the issue with the comment, "...maybe someday I'll try it alone." ^[2] When the crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

[edit] Earhart enters competitive flying

Earhart made her first attempt at competitive flying in 1929 during the first Santa Monica-to-Cleveland Cleveland Women's Air Derby (later nicknamed the "Powder Puff Derby" by Will Rogers), placing third.

During this period, Earhart became involved in an organization of women pilots, the "Ninety Nines." She coined their name based on the number of charter members in 1929. The "99" were then as today, licensed women pilots providing mutual support and advancing the cause of women in aviation. The "Ninety Nines" including charter member Louise Thaden (noted air racer), and current members such as Space Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins, T-34 Airshow pilot and airline captain Julie Clark and World Aerobatic Champion Patty Wagstaff.

In the aftermath of her Atlantic flight, Putnam undertook to heavily promote Earhart in a campaign that included publishing a book she authored, lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, cigarettes (she didn't smoke), pajamas, and women's sportswear. Because of her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, ^[3] whom the press had dubbed "Lucky Lindy," the American public began referring to Amelia as "Lady Lindy." Later in 1931, she set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet (5613 m) in a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro.

[edit] Marriage to George Putnam

Although for a while, she was engaged to Samuel Chapman, an attorney from Boston, the extensive time Earhart and Putnam spent together led to intimacy and, after substantial hesitation on her part, a marriage on February 7, 1931. Earhart referred to her marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control" and appears to have asked for an open marriage. In a letter written to Putnam shortly before their wedding, she said, "I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly." (see [3], [4]).

According to Earhart's biographer, Susan Butler, the great love of the aviator's life was the pioneering Army Air Corps pilot Gene Vidal, who became director of the bureau of air commerce under Franklin D. Roosevelt and was the father of the writer Gore Vidal.[5]

[edit] Transatlantic world record flight

On the morning of May 20, 1932, aged 34, Earhart took off from Saint John, New Brunswick with the latest (dated) copy of a local newspaper. She set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland in her single engine Lockheed Vega, intending to fly to Paris, duplicating Charles Lindbergh's solo flight. After a perilous flight of 14 hours, 56 minutes battling strong north winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, she was forced to land in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. When she taxiied up to a nearby farm cottage, the startled farm hand called out, "Have you flown far?" "From America," Amelia calmly replied. That Gallagher family cottage at Ballyarnett where she stopped for assistance is now the Amelia Earhart Centre [6], commemorating her record breaking transatlantic flight.

As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic she received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover.

[edit] Solo flights

On January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California. Later that year, she soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico City and back to Newark, New Jersey. Subsequently, she set several transcontinental speed records.

[edit] World flight, 1937

[edit] Planning to circumnavigate the globe

Earhart joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1935 as counselor on careers for women, exploring new fields for young women to enter after graduation. In July 1936, she took delivery of a Lockheed L-10E Electra financed by Purdue University and started planning a round-the-world flight. This record-breaking flight would not be the first to circle the globe, but would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km) since it would follow a grueling equatorial route.

Although the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory," little useful science was planned and the flight seems to have been arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the earth along with providing raw material and public attention for her next book. Her first choice of crew was Captain Harry Manning, who had been the captain of the President Roosevelt, the ship that had brought Amelia back from Europe in 1928.

Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a navigator. He had vast experience in both marine (he was a licensed ship's captain) and flight navigation. Noonan had recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's seaplane routes across the Pacific. He hoped the resulting publicity would help him establish his own navigation school in Florida. The original plans were for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularily difficult portion of the flight, and Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia, then she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the flight.

[edit] The first attempt for a world flight

On St Patrick's Day, 1937, they flew the first leg, Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Captain Harry Manning and Paul Mantz were on board. Noonan was to act as the primary navigator while Mantz was Earhart's technical advisor for the record breaking flight. Due to lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the plane needed servicing in Hawaii. Ultimately, the plane ended up at the U.S. Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. The flight resumed three days later from Luke Field with Earhart, Noonan and Manning onboard, but a tire blew on takeoff and Earhart ground-looped the plane. Questions remain surrounding the circumstances of the ground loop. Some witnesses at Luke Field did say they saw a tire blow and Earhart thought the Electra's tire blew and/or the right landing gear had collapsed. Paul Mantz, though, thought pilot error was to blame for the accident.

With the plane severely damaged, the flight was called off since the aircraft had to be shipped to the Lockheed facility in Burbank, CA for repairs.

[edit] The second attempt for a world flight

While the Electra was being repaired, Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and made plans for a second world flight. Flying west to east this time, the second flight would begin with an unpublicized flight from Oakland, CA to Miami, FL. Only after arriving in Miami did Earhart publicly announce her plans for a second world flight attempt. The change in the flight's direction was primarily due to changes in global wind and weather patterns over the planned route since the first attempt two-and-a-half months earlier. Fred Noonan was Earhart's only crew member for the second flight. Paul Mantz had left the crew in part because of his lack of confidence in Earhart's piloting skills after the Luke Field accident.^{[citation needed]} Earhart and Noonan departed Miami on 1 June and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, they arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29.

About 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed and the remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would all be over the Pacific.

[edit] The departure from Lae

On July 2, 1937, at midnight GMT Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6561.6 ft (2000 metres) long and 1640.4 ft (500 metres) wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2556 miles (4113 km) away.

Their last positive position report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E and guide her to the island once she arrived in the vicinity.

[edit] Final approach to Howland Island

Through a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland using radio navigation was never accomplished. Some sources have noted Amelia's apparent lack of understanding of her Bendix direction finding loop antenna, which at the time was very new technology. Another cited cause of possible confusion was that the USCG cutter Itasca and Earhart timed their planned communication schedule using time systems that set a half hour apart (Earhart based her schedule on Greenwich Civil Time (GCT) and the Itasca was using a Naval time zone designation system).

Another possible cause is based on photo evidence from Lae: An antenna mounted underneath the fuselage may have been torn off the heavily loaded Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway. During Earhart and Noonan's approach of Howland island Itasca received strong, relatively clear voice transmissions from Earhart but she apparently was unable to hear transmissions from the Itasca. Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (nine km). The Itasca used her oil-fired boilers to generate smoke for a period of time but the flyers apparently did not see it.

[edit] Post loss signals

After several hours of frustrating attempts at two-way communications, contact was lost. Her last successful voice transmission did indicate Earhart and Noonan were flying along a line of position (157 - 337 deg), presumably through Howland Island. Subsequent attempts were made to contact the flyers by radio using both voice and Morse code transmissions. Voice transmissions apparently from the downed Electra, usually unintelligibly garbled and/or weak, were received by operators across the Pacific. Some of these transmissions were later shown to be hoaxes but some were deemed authentic. This would indicate Earhart and Noonan were on land (at least partially) because the Electra's right engine had to be running in order to charge the radio's battery. Transmissions from the plane were heard intermittently for four or five days after the disappearance. None of the transmissions gave any understandable position for the downed Electra. Incredibly, a couple of short wave radio listeners on the US mainland may have heard distress calls on upper harmonic frequencies.

[edit] Investigating Earhart's disappearance

[edit] Two week search in the Howland Island area

About one to two hours after the failure of Earhart's Howland Island arrival, the Itasca began an ultimately unsuccessful search north and west of Howland island based on some initial assumptions and supposed transmission from the plane. The U.S. Navy took over the search and sent available resources to the Howland Island vicinity. It took about three days to deploy Navy ships to the search area. Once the Navy took over search responsibilities, and based on bearings of several supposed Earhart radio transmissions (as well as her last known transmission giving a line of position), some of the search efforts were eventually directed to a group of small islands - the Phoenix Islands - south of Howland Island. Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of Howland Island, based on the belief that the plane had ditched in the ocean.

All of the official search efforts lasted about two weeks but Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E were never found. The United States government spent $4 million looking for Earhart. The air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in history at that time, but search and rescue techniques during that era were rudimentary. Some of the search was unfortunately based on many erroneous assumptions and bad information. Official reporting of the search efforts was influenced by individuals wary about how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press.

[edit] Majority view of researchers

Many researchers believe the plane ran out of fuel and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. However, one group (TIGHAR — The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) suggests they may have flown for two-and-a-half hours along a standard line of position, which Earhart specified in her last transmission received at Howland, to Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro, Kiribati) in the Phoenix group, landed there and ultimately perished. TIGHAR's research has produced a range of documented, archaeological and anecdotal evidence (but no proof) supporting this theory [7],[8]. For example, in 1940 Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer (also a licensed pilot) radioed his superiors to inform them that he believed he had found Earhart's skeleton, along with a sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. TIGHAR's executive director Ric Gillespie authored the book Finding Amelia (2006) which describes TIGHAR's findings regarding Earhart's world flight attempts.

[edit] Myths and conjectures

[edit] Involvement of the Japanese

During the decades since her disappearance, many unverified stories and urban legends have circulated (and often been published) about what might have happened to Earhart and Noonan. Some have claimed Earhart was captured in the South Pacific Mandate area by the Japanese and interned for a number of years before either subsequently perishing or being executed. This story originated when a man, then 15, claimed he had been toying with his radio and a woman came upon the speaker, claiming to be Amelia Earhart. There was then a scream and the woman said Japanese soldiers had entered the plane, she begged them not to hurt her. Then the transmission went dead.

Purported photographs of Earhart during her captivity have been identified as having been taken before her final flight. A World War II era movie called Flight for Freedom, starring Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray is often cited as the most likely source of a popular myth that Earhart was spying on the Japanese in the Pacific at the request of the Franklin Roosevelt administration.

Some researchers have noted the possibility that for wartime propaganda purposes, the U.S. government may have tacitly encouraged (or was indifferent to) false rumors that Earhart had been captured by the Japanese.

An archaeological dig on Tinian in 2004 failed to turn up any bones at a location rumored since the close of World War II to be the aviators' grave.

Another rumor was that Earhart had been forced to make propaganda radio broadcasts as one of the many women known as Tokyo Rose (according to several biographies of Earhart, George Putnam investigated this rumor personally, but after listening to recordings of numerous Tokyo Roses, was unable to recognize her voice among them).

[edit] Japanese Saipan prison theory

In another account, natives of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands claim that Earhart and Noonan were captured and executed when their plane crashed in the archipelago while it was under Japanese occupation. Although there is little objective evidence to support this theory, this account was recreated for the American television series Unsolved Mysteries and was investigated by the news division of the CBS television network.

CBS Correspondent Fred Goerner wrote a book [9] in 1966 investigating this theory; it included information from over 200 Saipanese islanders who claimed to see Earhart on the island. Connie Chung did an interview with an elderly Saipanese woman ("Eye to Eye," airdate January 1999) who claimed to witness Earhart's execution at the hands of Japanese soldiers.

After World War II, a number of veterans came forward with tales of seeing her plane on Saipan. Thomas E. Devine, in a postal Army unit wrote a book "Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident" based on his eyewitness recollections which includes a letter from the daughter of a Japanese Chief of Police Suzuki who claimed her father was responsible for Earhart's execution. Former U.S. Marine Robert Wallack was also interviewed by Chung, and he claims that he and some other soldiers opened a safe and found Earhart's briefcase. He had heard that she had disappeared in the Pacific and was surprised to find the contents, which included maps, routes and a passport "as dry as a bone."

Recently, former U.S. Marine Earskin J. Nabers recalled that when he served as a wire operator on Saipan, reporting to Colonel Wallace M. Green, (later a General and the head of the Marine Corps), he decoded a message regarded Amelia Earhart. The message was directed from Pacific Fleet Headquarters("CinqPaq") under the supervision of Admiral Chester Nimitz, on June 9, 1944, stating that the U.S. Military "had found Amelia Earhart's airplane at Aslito AirField." Nabers claims he was curious that Colonel Wallace signed the decoded message and "didn't seem surprised." Later, Nabers claims he was ordered to guard the plane for 24 hours. After guarding the plane, he decoded a message that said "We are going to destroy Amelia Earhart's airplane." He and three other Marines went out to Aslito airfield and watched as the Marines destroyed her airplane. An interview with Devine, Wallack and Nabers can be found here.

[edit] "Planned disappearance" and paranormal explanations

In November 2006, the National Geographic Channel aired episode two of the Undiscovered History series in which was presented the theory that Earhart survived the incident near Howland Island, moved to New Jersey, changed her name, remarried, and became a person named Irene Craigmile Bolam and lived the remainder of her life in relative peace and quiet (a book published in 1970 called "Amelia Earhart Lives" by Joe Klaas detailed this theory). [10]

Bolam denied being Earhart and filed a lawsuit requesting $1.5 million in damages. One source stated that five years later, the book's authors offered to settle for the requested amount if Bolam would agree to provide her fingerprints to establish her identity in front of the judge. Bolam declined and later dropped the suit. [11] This source also stated that Bolam died in 1982, was cremated, and that her death certificate listed her parents as "unknown." [12]

Others have offered a paranormal explanation for Earhart's disappearance, for example, abduction by an Unidentified Flying Objects (the aforementioned Star Trek episode was based upon the UFO myth). There is no evidence to support any of these suggestions, which have all been dismissed by serious historians.

Amelia Earhart

[edit] Records

• First woman to fly the Atlantic
• First woman to fly the Atlantic alone
• First person to fly the Atlantic alone twice
• First woman to fly an autogyro
• First person to cross the U.S. in an autogyro
• First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross
• First woman to fly non-stop across the U.S.
• First woman to fly from Hawaii to the continental United States [13]

[edit] Legacy

• Amelia Earhart was a widely-known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage, and goal-oriented career along with the mysterious circumstances of her disappearance have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. Hundreds of books have been written about her life, which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls. Earhart is generally regarded as a feminist icon.
• In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Amelia Earhart was launched. It was wrecked in 1948.
• She was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1992.
• A corona on Venus, has been named "Earhart" in her honour by the IAU.
• Earhart Light (a day beacon) was named for her on Howland Island.
• The Amelia Earhart birthplace[14] at 23 North Terrace Street, Atchison, Kansas is now a museum and a National Historic Site, owned and administered by the 99s, an organization in which she was a founding member.

[edit] Books by Earhart

Amelia Earhart was an accomplished and articulate writer who served as aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. She wrote numerous magazine articles and essays and published two books based upon her experiences as a flyer during her lifetime:

• 20 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928) was her journal of her 1928 flight across the Atlantic as a passenger (making her the first woman to make such a journey).
• The Fun of It (1932) was a memoir of her flying experiences, as well as an essay on women in aviation.
• Last Flight (1937) was published following her disappearance and featured journal entries she made in the weeks prior to her final departure from New Guinea. Compiled by Putnam himself, historians have cast doubt upon how much of the book was actually Earhart's original work and how much had been embellished by Putnam.

[edit] Popular culture

The romantic, tragic and mysterious story of Amelia Earhart has spurred the imaginations of many writers. Stories featuring her have ranged from straightforward biographies to true flights of fantasy. For example:

• The 1943 Rosalind Russell film Flight for Freedom was a fictionalized treatment of Earhart's life, with a heavy dose of Hollywood World War II propaganda.
• Possibly the first tribute album dedicated to the legend of Amelia Earhart was by Plainsong, "In Search of Amelia Earhart," Elektra K42120, released in 1972. Both the album and the Press Pak released by Elektra are highly prized by collectors and have reached cult status. [15]
• Singer Joni Mitchell wrote a song called "Amelia" on her 1976 album, Hejira, based loosely on Amelia Earhart.
• A 1976 television bio production titled Amelia Earhart starring Susan Clark and John Forsythe included flying by Hollywood stunt pilot Frank Tallman whose late partner in Tallmantz Aviation, Paul Mantz, had tutored Earhart in the 1930s.
• The rock group Slaughter wrote a song titled "Fly To The Angels" (1990) which is dedicated to Amelia Earhart's legacy.
• Clive Cussler's 1992 book, Sahara mentions Amelia Earhart in a scene where one of the main characters visits a secret US information depository and mentions that her body is stored there after she was executed by the Japanese.
• The band, The Story wrote and performed a song about Earhart called "Amelia" on their 1993 album, The Angel in the House.
• Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (1994) starring Diane Keaton, Rutger Hauer and Bruce Dern was initially released as TV movie and subsequently released as a theatrical feature.
• Earhart was portrayed by Diane Keaton in the 1994 television film, Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight.
• The Star Trek: Voyager episode, "The 37s," (1995) suggests that Earhart and Noonan were kidnapped by aliens in 1937 and taken to the Delta Quadrant, where they were found by Captain Kathryn Janeway but chose to remain on the far side of the galaxy instead of returning to Earth; like other Earhart-related fiction, a romance between Earhart and Noonan is implied. (The Star Trek franchise in general also established that one of Starfleet's main space stations in the 24th century is named after Earhart.)
• I Was Amelia Earhart (1996) is a faux autobiography by Jane Mendelsohn in which "Earhart" tells the story of what happened to her in 1937, complete with heavy doses of romance with her navigator.
• Flying Blind (1999) by Max Allan Collins is a detective novel in which the intrepid Nathan Heller is hired to be a bodyguard for Amelia Earhart. Before long they become lovers (her marriage to Putnam being described as being a union in name only), and later Heller helps her to try to escape from the Japanese following her ill-fated flight.
• Earhart is mentioned in the song "Someday We'll Know" (1999) by the New Radicals, later covered by Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman for the movie A Walk To Remember.
• Singer/songwriter Deb Talan's second album, "Something Burning" (2000), begins with a song called "Thinking Amelia." The song goes on to suggest that Earhart had a "one-in-a-million bad day."
• Ross Geller in the popular sitcom Friends mentions Amelia Earhart in episode 18 of season nine (2003-2004), entitled "The One with the Lottery." He notes with enthusiasm that "the woman just vanished" and that he wanted to make a theme park based on her and dinosaurs.
• In Christopher Moore's 2003 novel, Fluke, Earhart survived her wreck and appears as the mother of one of the characters.
• The song "Aviator" by Nemo, which appears on their 2004 debut LP "Signs of Life," was written about Amelia Earhart's last flight.
• The role of Amelia Earhart was played by Jane Lynch in the 2004 film, The Aviator, but the scenes were removed from the final cut.
• In the television show Lost (2005), the cast finds a pair of human skeletons whom they call "Adam and Eve." "Lost" fans have theorized that they are, in fact, Earhart and Noonan.
• The song "I Miss My Sky," written by Heather Nova for her 2005 album Redbird, is dedicated to Earhart, suggesting that she survived on an island after her disappearance.
• Banjo player Curtis Eller of Curtis Eller's American Circus has also written a song about Earhart's disappearance, "Amelia Earhart" in his "Taking Up Serpents Again" release (2005). One of the lyrics poignantly states that she, "disappeared in a cloudbank and the static never cleared." Lyrics
• The Canadian Hip Hop artist Buck 65 mentions Amelia Earhart in the song "Blood of a Young Wolf" (2006) from the album Secret House Against The World.
• In the film, "A Good Year" (2006), Russell Crowe's character, Max Skinner, talks about Amelia's death.

[edit] See also

• Aviation
• Amelia Earhart Park
• Opa-locka Airport
• Irene Craigmile Bolam
• List of people who have disappeared

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Amelia Earhart

[edit] External links

• Official Amelia Earhart Web site
• The Earhart Project from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. Includes a summary of the Nikumaroro landing hypothesis and a video showing Earhart's Lockheed taking off from Lae
• Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum
• Amelia Earhart Collection of Papers, Memorabilia and Artifacts The world's largest collection of Earhart photographs, artifacts and correspondence. More than 600 photos are now online.
• Amelia Earhart Museum
• Where is Amelia Earhart? Three Theories (including the Irene Craigmile Bolam theory)
• The Bolam theory with lawsuit details
• Amelia Earhart's resignation as Vice President of the National Aeronautic Association in May 1933
• Transcript of interview with Earhart biographer Susan Butler, 1997
• Amelia Earhart: On The Future Of Women In Flying (listen online)

Persondata
NAME	Earhart, Amelia Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American aviator
DATE OF BIRTH	July 24, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH	Atchison, Kansas, United States
DATE OF DEATH	Unknown (missing since July 2, 1937)
PLACE OF DEATH	Unknown (missing over the Pacific Ocean)