Of all the weird stunts, legends, and tall tales that have populated the short history
of humankind's foray into the skies, Amelia Earhart conspiracy theories might be the strangest
of all.
While most folks believe that she and navigator Fred Noonan died when their plane ran out
of gas while trying to fly across the Pacific Ocean, others just won't accept it.
Here's a look at some really bizarre theories about Amelia Earhart's disappearance.
Amelia Earhart was rescued by cave people
Let's start with perhaps the most ridiculous theory: that she was rescued from her plane
crash Hollywood style, at the last second, by a race of benevolent creatures who live
at the center of the Earth.
And according to Hollow Earth magazine, she's still there, because people there are... immortal!!
Like this guy!
"I am immortal."
Talk about your lucky breaks!
Amelia Earhart was abducted by aliens
While most people think the Hollow Earth idea is stupid, some believe a more likely explanation
is that she was abducted by aliens.
Why?
Well, there's no consensus on that, but one theory is that they...needed her to help spawn
a civilization of human soldiers to fight their space wars.
Seems far-fetched, but this theory was endorsed by Star Trek: Voyager, so you know there just
has to be something to it.
"Wait.
. There's a name tag here.
I think it's…
Amelia Earhart!"
Amelia Earhart faked her death for love
In the 1943 film Flight for Freedom, a highly fictionalized version of Earhart is caught
in a love triangle between two other pilots.
In the real world, both Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were happily married.
But thanks to the movie version, some people came up with the theory that the two faked
their deaths so they could secretly run off together without their spouses finding out.
Besides the fact that there's not a single shred of evidence to support this theory,
it's also kind of insulting to think that Earhart was willing to sacrifice her life's
dream of circumnavigating the globe trip just because Noonan was such a dreamboat.
But people do like their romance, so this cockamamie story lives on.
Amelia Earhart became a nurse on Guadalcanal
In a theory that is somehow even less plausible than alien abduction or being rescued by teleporting
mole people from the center of the Earth, some folks believe that after crash-landing
in the Pacific, Earhart somehow survived, secretly got her nursing degree, and ended
up on the isle of Guadalcanal, where she helped tend to wounded Allied soldiers.
There's a reason for this theory, and it's the true story of a nurse named Merle Farland,
who did actually end up on Guadalcanal in 1943, a lone woman among tens of thousands
of soldiers.
Some of those soldiers apparently thought she bore a passing resemblance to Earhart,
and thus, this stupid theory was born.
Amelia Earhart was a spy
More than one theory about Earhart's disappearance is based on the idea that her flight was actually
a secret mission for the U.S. government, and that she was shot down and captured as
a spy by the Japanese.
Of course, there are some problems with this, like the fact that she vanished four years
before America entered World War II, but those little details never stopped a good story.
Some people believe she died in a Japanese prison camp, while others believe that, like
Tokyo Rose, she was forced to deliver Japanese propaganda reports over the radio during the
war.
In 1944, her husband refuted this, saying he would
"stake his life"
that the voice on the radio wasn't his dead wife's.
Because, you know… it wasn't.
Amelia Earhart became a New Jersey banker
Perhaps the craziest version of the "spy" fable was presented by author Joe Klaas in
his 1970 book Amelia Earhart Lives!
The sensational book claimed that not only did Earhart survive getting shot down, she
also survived the war and returned to America, where she was secretly living a new life as
unassuming New Jersey banker Irene Bolam.
Bolam sued Klaas, who was forced to stop publishing his book.
But after her death in 1982, other people took up the cause, including author Rollin
Reineck, who repeated the accusation in his 2003 book Amelia Earhart Survived.
Amelia Earhart became a castaway
Perhaps the most commonly suggested theories regarding the ultimate fate of Earhart involve
her successfully crash-landing on a deserted Pacific island.
In one version of the story, an Australian pilot claimed to have found the wreck of her
plane in 1945 on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea.
But since her last radio signal was hundreds of miles away, that seems pretty unlikely.
Another popular theory is that she and Noonan landed on the island of Nikumaroro.
In a really horrifying New York Post story, the newspaper advanced the idea that Earhart
and Noonan survived the plane crash only to be eaten by giant, vicious Coconut crabs.
The coconut crab, in case you're wondering, looks like this:
Whether or not giant, horrifying crabs ate them, it's now believed that the pair may
indeed have died on Nikumaroro.
In 1940, a British soldier found human remains on the island.
And a number of other artifacts have been recovered, including shoes, a box that once
contained a navigation device, and a jar of anti-freckle cream, a significant clue since
Earhart was known to dislike her freckled complexion.
Finally, in 2018, forensic scientists announced that a re-examination of the data from the
bones found in 1940 shows that they do, in fact, likely belong to Amelia Earhart.
Hopefully now, conspiracy nuts can finally let Amelia rest in peace.
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