Amelia Earhart: What The General Public Never Knew

The Past Most Significant Amelia Earhart Disappearance Investigations

Home Page: Amelia Earhart
About Tod Swindell
Drumming Out False Earhart History
The Curious Mrs. Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam
Past Significant Amelia Earhart Disappearance Investigations
About 'Operation Earhart' (1960-1970)
The 1980s and 1990s Words Of Monsignor James Francis Kelley On Amelia Earhart
Comparing Amelia Earhart To Irene O'Crowley Craigmile (Surname 'Bolam' added in 1958)
Wikipedia Deceitfully Misleads the Public About Amelia and Irene
Newspaper Fraud Tried To Hide The Truth In 1982

 

Protecting Earhart's 'Modern' Analysis Evaluated The Most Significant Amelia Earhart Disappearance Investigations From Years Gone By:

 

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1960

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1966

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1970

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1985

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1985

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1988

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1994

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1999

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2004

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2016
 
 

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1996-2020 modern investigation and
forensic comparison analysis.
Copyright 2014, 2017, & 2020 
 
 

Reviewing the most significant 'Earhart disappearance investigations' from the past is a good introduction to Protecting Earhart's modern investigation and its Irene-Amelia.com website, that delivered the most comprehensive analysis ever to examine Amelia Earhart's 1937 'disappearance' and subsequent 'missing person' case. 

Of note, ALL of the authors of the books shown above, based on the facts as they knew them to be, concluded that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan successfully ditched their plane in a 'no fly zone' territory, and they were picked up and sequestered by Japan's Imperial Navy at the same time Japan was instigating the second Sino-Japanese War, that the United States strongly opposed.

Four of the above listed books; Amelia Earhart Lives, Stand By To Die, Amelia Earhart Survived, and Amelia Earhart Beyond the Grave, concluded that Amelia Earhart remained sequestered under Japan's stewardship until the end of World War Two. They also concluded that after Japan surrendered to the allies, Amelia returned to the United States and assumed the leftover identity of, "Irene O'Crowley Craigmile" that belonged to a former 1930's pilot friend of hers who had inordinately perished years before.

It is worth noting here, the assertion, or 'claim' of Amelia living-on and becoming known as 'Irene' was soundly based dating back to its origin... and it has never been disproved. 

In the mid-1990s, the emergence of Amelia Earhart investigative journalist, Tod Swindell, began with his examinations of the most significant Amelia Earhart disappearance studies conducted up to that point. He named his endeavor, Protecting Earhart, and began backtracking all the way to Paul Briand's 1950s' investigation, followed by several others conducted throughout the remainder of the Twentieth-Century, finally culminating with Rollin C. Reineck's and W. C. Jameson's Twenty-First Century offerings that tracked and expounded on Protecting Earhart's groundbreaking forensic comparison analysis, the first one on record.

During the process of this long-term study, Tod Swindell met, came to know, and interviewed the majority of the still-living investigators; Mike Harris, Randall Brink, Joseph A. Gervais, Rollin C. Reineck, and Joe Klaas, for example, whose previous efforts led to some of the above book titles. The overall comprehensive review coupled with its forensic analysis results, enabled the Protecting Earhart study to present the first bona fide answer to the question of, 'what became of Amelia Earhart(?)' after she went missing.

Protecting Earhart's honed viewpoint of the above titles and more follows:

 

Before Protecting Earhart's long-term, recently completed study took place, in past decades the following works marked the three most weight-bearing Amelia Earhart investigations:

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1966 by Fred Goerner

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1970, The Joe Klaas book about the Gervais,
Dinger, and Briand ten year investigation;
'Operation Earhart'

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1994, by Randall Brink with
updates on Joseph A. Gervais 

The Gestation Of Modern 'Amelia Earhart
Mystery' Sleuthing Dates Back To 1960
 
In 1960, Air Force Captains Joseph A. Gervais, Bob Dinger, and Paul Briand were stationed in the Pacific region where Amelia Earhart went 'missing' twenty-three years earlier. After hearing one statement after another that described how Amelia had actually survived her loss, they started 'Operation Earhart' in order to learn everything they could about what actually happened to Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan. In 1962, a CBS radio journalist named Fred Goerner, learned of the seventy-two sworn affidavits Gervais and Dinger collected from individuals among Micronesian Islands who spoke of Amelia's ongoing existence under Japan's stewardship beyond the date she was last heard from; July 2, 1937. Goerner also learned that the two officers were summoned by top U.S. military brass stationed in Japan then, whom confiscated much of their gathered information and ordered them to disassociate 'Operation Earhart' from appearing as if it was a military backed endeavor.
 
Fred Goerner's curiosity toward it all grew to a point where he decided to travel to Micronesia himself and basically learned the same thing from a wide variety of people, including eyewitnesses, who said Amelia and Fred Noonan were rescued by Japan at a tenuous time--during the onset of the Sino-Japanese War that the United States was opposed to.  "Amelia flew well off course after missing Howland Island, where she was supposed to land, and she ended up entering Japan's restricted territory," was the most common recollection that Fred Goerner, and Gervais, Briand, and Dinger before him heard time and again. 
 
The results of both studies, that combined for about fifteen years of investigative research, led to the best selling books shown above. Each determined, based on factual data and an overwhelming preponderence of circumstantial evidence, that Amelia did not simply 'disappear without a trace' as the general public was led to believe. 
 
From then on, and continuing well into the Twenty-First Century, Protecting Earhart kept discovering new, revealing, and at times startling information about Amelia Earhart's 1937 'disappearance' and subsequent 'missing person case.' 
 
 

Today, people who are keenly aware of the particulars that surrounded Amelia Earhart's infamous disappearance saga, are accepting of she and Fred Noonan's ongoing existence under the auspice of Japan, for an undetermined time period, yet well beyond the date they were reported missing. They understand at the same time that the general public was never supposed to know about it--both before and then coming out of the World War Two years. Why? remained the unanswered question.

"Numerous investigations foundered on official silence in Washington and Tokyo, leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan an everlasting mystery." 1982, aviation historians, Marylin Bender and Selig Altschul on the 1937 disappearance and subsequent missing person case of Amelia Earhart, quoted from their book, The Chosen Instrument.
 

Below are Tod Swindell's reviews of the most significant works ever published on the historical controversy over Amelia Earhart's premature world-flight ending, to include what ultimately became of her after she was declared, "a missing person".
 

 
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Daughter of the Sky by Paul Briand, 1960  
[Duell, Sloan, & Pearce]

Paul Briand's Daughter of the Sky marked the first well researched Amelia Earhart disappearance book. Briand heard, learned of, and analyzed first hand accounts, (a slew of eyewitnesses were still alive then) past statements from representatives of Japan's military forces, and recollections of others who lived among Japan's Imperial Mandate Islands during the time Amelia Earhart went missing. Daughter of the Sky was first to present the reality of Amelia Earhart's post-loss 'non-publicized survival' among Japan's Imperial Mandate Islands after she was picked up by its Naval Authority. Where it appeared the two fliers ended up on Saipan for awhile according to various eyewitness accounts, Briand first considered they might have actually gone down there. He soon changed his belief to concur with the Marshall Islands' Mili Atoll as the place the two fliers initially ended up before they were transferred to Jaluit before they were moved to Saipan, after he reviewed the 1960s separate investigations of Joe Gervais and Fred Goerner, whose thorough follow-up efforts he inspired.
 
 

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Fred Goerner's 1966 classic was a New York Times best seller. The 1964 Admiral Chester Nimitz quote first appeared in it; "Earhart and her navigator did go down in the Marshall Islands and were picked up by the Japanese." Former U.S. Naval Commander, John Pillsbury's 1962 quote also appears in it, where he intimated his opinion to Goerner about his investigation of the Earhart case in this manner: "You're on to something that will stagger your imagination." A CBS Radio Journalist, Fred Goerner expounded on the highly curious information he located in letters he wrote to Amelia's survived Sister, Muriel. He added Admiral Nimitz' conveyance of how it was, "known and documented in Washington," that Amelia had survived beyond July 2, 1937, courtesy of Japan's Naval Authority stationed among its Imperial Mandate Islands. [Add this to statements made by Amelia's mother, Amy Otis Earhart to the New York Times in 1949 when she mentioned she was always aware her daughter Amelia had survived under the auspice of Japan, and claimed she 'knew' Amelia had been permitted to radio from overseas.] Goerner's investigation determined Earhart and Noonan went down at Mili atoll of the lower Marshalls. It is a great, informative read minus its flawed conclusion that Japan allowed Amelia to die of dysentery while she was sequestered on Saipan, something hard evidence never supported. 

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Amelia Earhart Lives by Joe Klaas, 1970, McGraw-Hill

The 1970 Joe Klaas book, Amelia Earhart Lives was also a New York Times best seller. Based on the investigative research of Joseph A. Gervais and Bob Dinger who formed 'Operation Earhart' in 1960, it raised questions about the Earhart saga that had never been asked before. Irene Craigmile Bolam (the 'Gervais-Irene' whose picture appeared in the book) successfully sued to get it removed from the stores seven weeks after it was published. Yet she sued for libel, not for having been implicated as the 'former' Amelia Earhart. Although the book included 'Hull Island' as a possible ditching spot where Japan might have retrieved them, Gervais (like Fred Goerner) ultimately concluded Earhart and Noonan went down at Mili Atoll of the lower Marshall Islands. The book also strongly implicated Amelia Earhart to have somehow  survived  under Japan's stewardship, before eventually changing her name to 'Irene Craigmile' and later to 'Irene Bolam' after she married Guy Bolam of England in 1958. Joe Gervais, based on his own and additional research presented by others, determined Amelia Earhart had privately decided to end her marriage to George Putnam after her world flight, and that she had agreed to serve an unknown purpose during her world flight before things went wrong. He believed Amelia survived the war in Japan's custody, then optioned to lead a non-public life in the United States following the World War Two era. It is certain that her accounting for her eight years of absence from 1937 to 1945 would have caused complications not only for for herself, but for the U.S. and Japan as well.  After I was endorsed to meet Joe Gervais by Randall Brink in 1996, I soon found myself with Joe in his famed 'Earhart Den' in his Las Vegas home. His savant-like Earhart knowledge won me over and we soon became friends and collaborators. We met several times and corresponded on a regular basis until his passing in 2005. I am proud to have filmed Joe's last on-camera interview. To those who still choose to ridicule the investigative research and conclusions Joe Gervais offered, just know he was an accomplished pilot and hero who served in World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam before he retired as a Major in 1963. He was also a kind family man of upstanding character, as well as the most thoroughly devoted Amelia Earhart investigative researcher I ever knew or heard of.  

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The Chosen Instrument
By Selig Altschul and Marilyn Bender,
Simon & Schuster, 1982
 
 
 

Though it isn't an Amelia Earhart book, The Chosen Instrument offers a comprehensive history of Juan Trippe and Pan Am Airways by expounding on the government contracts consistently awarded to Pan Am in the 1930s and 1940s. It also includes the telling historical quote, "Numerous investigations foundered on official silence in Tokyo and Washington, leaving the fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan an everlasting mystery." Before Amelia hired him away from Pan Am to navigate her globe circling flight (that she announced would be her "last great flight") Fred Noonan was considered Pan Am's top air-over-ocean navigator who co-pioneered its great Clipper service. He was never fired from Pan Am for excessive drinking as later false-rumors described. Contrarily, he's mentioned several times in The Chosen Instrument in glowing ways. The original Irene's son, Larry Heller, also went on to become a distinguished Pan Am pilot, and the Irene Craigmile Bolam was known to have had 'flying privileges' with Pan Am in her later years.
 

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Emile Gauvreau's 1944 classic WWII
aviation book, 'The Wild Blue Yonder'
 
Among several curious quotesfound in Emile Gauvreau's 1944 book, The Wild Blue Yonder, here is one from U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Claude Swanson, in reference to controversy that surrounded Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance: "This is a powder keg. Any public discussion of it will furnish the torch for the explosion." 

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Lost Star: The Search For Amelia Earhart
 
by Randall Brink
 
W.W. Norton, 1994
 
 
Author Randall Brink collaborated with Joe Gervais for better than ten years. I first met with Randall in Seattle not long after his book's publication. I found him to be a brilliant, 'knowledgeably aware about Amelia Earhart' individual. I also noticed that he had been listed among the personal invitees to Irene O'crowley Craigmile-Bolam's 1982 Memorial Dinner event. His book, Lost Star, is a superbly written account that edifies the 'executive order seal' placed over the Earhart loss episode almost dating back to the time it occurred.
 
Initially published in England, Lost Star became an international best seller. Connie Chung profiled it in a CBS special report. On the cover of a reprinted American edition a review quote reads; "Brink writes of a vast cover-up that got as far as the White House.... Terrific reading." --Larry King, USA Today. [Note: Lost Star offers the best introduction to the works of Briand, Gervais & Klaas, Fred Goerner, Buddy Brennan, and Vincent Loomis. It does not point to a vast conspiracy, rather, it points to an after-the-fact 'let's move on' attitude adopted by intelligence connected individuals in Washington who were aware of what really happened to Amelia.]

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The cover of my first 1998 MSS primarily based on interviews with Lost Star Author, Randall Brink; USAF Major Joe Gervais (ret.); and USAF Colonel Rollin C. Reineck (ret.) 

 
Tod Swindell's reviews of significant Amelia Earhart investigative books and publications: 
 
 

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Amelia Earhart Survived

By USAF Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, (Ret.) The Paragon Agency, 2004

 

USAF (Ret.) Colonel Rollin Reineck was a World War Two hero who flew the last missions over Tokyo just prior to VJ Day. His book, Amelia Earhart Survived is the second most recent commercially published book to promote the Irene-Amelia assertion as a truth to be recognized -- instead of leaving it mothballed courtesy of historical obfuscations. Col. Reineck's book was also the first to display photos of the 'different' Irene O'Crowley Craigimle's and signature comparisons excerpted from my (at the time in-progress) analysis. For decades before his passing occurred in 2007, Col. Reineck was considered a top Amelia Earhart investigative researcher. I was proud to know him and call him my friend the last decade of his life. We spent much time together after Joseph A. Gervais introduced me to him. Col. Reineck averred that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan went down at Mili Atoll of the lower Marshalls Rattak chain, and after a few days they found themselves in the hands of Japan's Naval Authority. The Colonel stated that my forensic comparison study and investigative research analysis caused him to finally accept and believe with certainty that Amelia Earhart did make her way back to the U.S. newly re-identified as Irene O'Crowley Craigmile, a name that had belonged to a past pilot friend of Amelia's. Col. Reineck's 1991 taped interviews with Monsignor James Francis Kelley, Mrs. Helen Barber, Mr. Donald Dekoster, and Mrs. Gertrude Kelley Hession, are essential to comprehending the 'Amelia became Irene' conveyance. For use in his book, Col. Reineck referenced my label of 'the Gervais-Irene' for the former Amelia Earhart. Colonel Reineck was a long time prominent Amelia Earhart Society of Researchers member. We were long time research collaborators as well; he freely shared his research information with me just as Joseph A. Gervais did. I miss them both.

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Amelia Earhart: The Final Story by Vincent Loomis and Jeffrey Ethell
Random House 1985

In his 1985 book Amelia Earhart: The Final Story, Vincent Loomis, who extensively combed the Marshall Islands, agreed with Fred Goerner's 1966 conclusion that Mili atoll was the place Amelia went down there. (Loomis presumed Amelia eventually perished in the hands of the Japanese.) It was after reading his book that I became more curious about the Irene-Amelia claim. In its text, a sentence appeared regarding the Gervais and Klass investigative book, Amelia Earhart Lives. It referenced the book's previous implication of Amelia Earhart having changed her name to 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile.' It was a short sentence related to the 'Amelia became Irene' conveyance that read: "Yet to this day, the authors (Joe Gervais & Joe Klaas) affirm that they are correct." I was intrigued by that. I wondered how after so much time, Gervais and Klaas could still remain steadfast in their belief that Amelia lived to change her name to Irene, no less than fifteen years after their book was dismissed by the press? The two war heroes still stuck to their guns about Amelia surviving and changing her name to Irene? As Gervais later explained, people assumed it was disproved even though it never was. 
 

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Amelia Earhart: Lost Legend by
Donald Moyer Wilson, Enigma Press-1999
 
Donald Moyer Wilson's book, Amelia Earhart: Lost Legend is remarkable. Wilson became a scholar on the subject of everyday life during the World War Two era among the Nipponese Imperial Islands while researching Earhart's post-loss existence there. His book presents a vast collection of personal accounts that described Amelia's life among Japan's mandate islands given by island government officials, former Japanese military personnel, local businessmen, common folk and indigenous natives. 'Lost Legend' contains over a hundred different testimonials in all, including over a dozen eyewitness conveyances. His research also concluded Earhart and Noonan went down at Mili atoll, but he did not offer a conclusion on what became of them afterward. I was pleased to learn when I met Don in Atchison, Kansas at an Amelia Earhart Festival where we both spoke some years ago, that after he reviewed elements from my forensic comparison analysis he supported the logic of Amelia Earhart eventually returning to the U.S. where she ending up living as 'Irene.'
 

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Stand By To Die; The Disappearance, Rescue, and Return of Amelia Earhart
By Robert Myers & Barbara Wiley, The Lighthouse Writers Guild-1985
 
In Robert Myers' book, Stand By To Die; The Disappearance, Rescue, and Return of Amelia Earhart, Myers wrote about his friend, Amelia Earhart, who he had met during his mid-1930s adolescent years, and how she became Irene O'Crowley Craigmile after she disappeared in 1937. The picture Joe Gervais took of the post-war only Irene is featured on his book's cover. Myers actually came to know Amelia as 'Irene' in the 1970s and he recorded phone conversations they had, some of which Protecting Earhart has archived. He also included sveral transcripts of their phone conversations in his book. Myers was interviewed for comment in the 1982 Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune series that questioned Amelia becoming Irene, and was generally portrayed by its reporters as a curious anomally to the story. It is evident those who knew him believed he was sincere and did not make up any of what he claimed to know. Working against him however, was the opinion of his book marking a non-linear read where Myers' personal emotions ran high when it came to the 'Amelia became Irene' conveyance. I have corresponded some with Barabara Wiley, who wrote the book with Mr. Myers; she affirmed Mal Paso (Clint Eastwood's company) had expressed interest in and even courted Myers' participation to develop a film project based on his story, though it never materialized. No matter, Meyers, who is no longer living, swore up and down that Irene did confide her former identity to him. 
 

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The Earhart Disappearance: The British Connection
by James A. Donahue, Aviation Heritage Library Series-1987 
 
The Earhart Disappearance; The British Connection is a fascinating study to be sure. James Donahue thoroughly researched what he believed to have been a United Kingdom involvement angle. His book described the likelihood of an additional British plane, either another Electra or a British Envoy (similar looking from a distance to an Electra) flown by another man and woman flying team in the same Pacific region at the same time Earhart and Noonan were flying there. A question was later raised: Did the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile, Amelia's 'flying pal' serve as the female pilot on the British sponsored team? Is that how the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile herself disappeared? Some who support the British-Connection theory believe this suggestion may hold water. Donahue otherwise suggested the famous British pilot, Beryl Markham (Markham's person served as the basis for a character portrayed in the film, 'Out Of Africa') who was staying with Jackie Cochran at the time Amelia was reported missing, as potentially involved on the British end. As well, it is interesting to note that the Gervais-Irene married Englisman, Guy Bolam in 1958, whose own brother described as a former MI-6 operative, suggesting there may have been even more to Donahue's, 'British Connection.'
 
 

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Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident
by Thomas E. Devine, Renaissance House-1987

Thomas E. Devine knew and worked with CBS Radio's Earhart investigator, Fred Goerner in the early 1960s. While a U.S. soldier as part of the 1944 occupation of Saipan, he claimed Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra had been impounded there by Japan, and he described how he actually "witnessed" the U.S. Navy 'intentionally burn it' ...ostensibly destroying it as evidence. (Combine this with a separate claim issued by U.S. soldier, Robert Wallack, who described how he and a few other soldiers blew open a Japanese military safe on Saipan after the U.S. occupation, where he discovered Amelia Earhart's 1937 flight satchel stowed inside.) Of course, getting the U.S. Navy to admit it burned Amelia Earhart's plane in 1944 would be hard to do. Devine also implicated 1944 U.S. Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestall, as directly involved with the plane burning incident. James Forrestall became U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1947, and Devine later claimed Forrestall's previous relationship with the 'Earhart cover-up' caused him great mental duress, and may have led to his curious death circumstances in 1949; a death that was labeled a suicide but was caused by his jumping out of an upper-story hospital window.
 

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Witness to the Execution by T.C. Buddy Brennan, Renaissance House-1988

Renaissance House published the T.C. Buddy Brennan Earhart book, Witness to the Execution in 1988. (I met and collaborated with Mike Harris for a brief spell, who led the 1983 Brennan expedition to Saipan with filmmaker, Nick Petrik.) Brennan's book included several 'witness' accounts, to include an extraordinary one from a Japanese fighter pilot by the name of Fuji Formosa. Mr. Formosa claimed he had been ordered to fire on a plane similar looking to Earhart's as it approached the Marshall Islands in 1937. Formosa mentioned he did not know if he hit it, but said he watched it go down near an 'atoll' before he returned to his carrier, the Akagi. He mentioned how later, other Japanese soldiers conveyed to him it was Amelia Earhart's plane he had fired on. Another eyewitness in the Brennan book was an old woman who claimed she saw Japanese soldiers execute Amelia Earhart on Saipan after driving her bound and blindfolded in a motorcycle side-car to a pre-dug grave. The problem is she was the only eyewitness. Still, Harris did a nice job with Nick Petrik's filmed interviews of reputable people among the Islands who insisted Earhart had been there. Side-note: Opposers of Formosa's account argued the Akagi was 'dry-docked' at the time of Earhart's disappearance. It was also hard to accept the person the elderly woman claimed she had witnessed the execution of, as a side-car transported, bound and blindfolded Amelia Earhart. As Joe Gervais aptly pointed out; "Japan (namely Hirohito and Yamamoto) never would have handled the Earhart situation that way. If anything they would have coveted her existence in their company."
 

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Flying Blind by Max Allan Collins, Dutton Books-1998

Well known Author, Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition, Dark Angel) wrote Flying Blind, a superb historical novel account of the 1937 Earhart disappearance case. He researched the real story to the hilt, then used his serial detective, Nathan Heller (no visible connection to Larry Heller, the original Irene Craigmile's son) as the vehicle to tell the story in real time. It is ironic of course, how after Amelia returned as 'the new Irene' she ended up continuing on with the co-raising of the original Irene Craigmile's son, Larry Heller..., while in the Collins' book after Earhart disappears, Detective Nathan Heller hears of the possibility Amelia might have been newly carrying his child when she took off on her last flight. So much could exist as a mere coincidence in the book, though it's one hard to overlook. In its epilogue, in the 1970s the elderly Nathan Heller actually meets the suspected Irene Craigmile Bolam and some of her friends for a drink at the same country club she (the Gervais-Irene) belonged to then near Princeton, New Jersey. Nathan Heller remarked of a peculiar familiarity he sensed about her, but he had a hard time recognizing the same Amelia he recalled. Still, he had a good time with Irene and her convivial friends that day, but he added where Irene was Amelia with a changed name, he'd prefer not to know. (Sound familiar? In 1966 when Joe Gervais mentioned the matter of Irene as the probable former Amelia Earhart to Amelia's sister, Muriel Earhart Morrissey she replied to him, "Where such a thing would be true Major Gervais, wouldn't it be best just to leave it alone?") I reviewed Collins' historically informative read, Flying Blind for the Fort Worth Star Telegram in January of 1999.  
 

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Legerdemain  by Dave Bowman, Authorhouse-2005, revised 2007:

David Bowman's 2005 Authorhouse book, Legerdemain offers a great history of Amelia Earhart's disappearance and aftermath. Mr. Bowman was a member of the Amelia Earhart Society, the now defunct group that was generally known for being 'non committal' when it came to expressing a concrete viewpoint on what happened to Amelia, although it has always been dead set against any possibility of her long-term survival. I did not know Mr. Bowman when he contacted me in 2004 requesting permission to feature a sample from my forensic study on his book's cover. Over time I found the Amelia Earhart Society's members greatly differing with some of their their ideas, and its founding President, Bill Prymak, was curious in the way he claimed to be the final 'judge' on what to promote theory-wise. (The AES reminded me of the John Birch Society in a way.) I granted Mr. Bowman permission to use my material and he duly credited me on the jacket flap. As predicted, Legerdemain favored no conclusion. I was surprised later, and found it hard to agree with the way Joe Gervais, Rollin Reineck and myself were referenced in the revised edition of Legerdemain that came out in 2007. Those who supported the long held Joe Gervais postulation that Amelia changed her name to Irene, were torn to shreds by Amelia Earhart Society President, Bill Prymak and and his minions. The harsh criticism newly appeared in a thirty page span between pages 363 and 393 with no counterpoint responses sought or included. The re-issued book also recklessly mis-identified credit on a portion of my study. If anything, Legerdemain somewhat marks the ongoing effort to leave the Earhart forensic truth as a topic of debate, as opposed to something that was basically figured out long ago, then forensically verified from 2002 to 2006. Legerdemain also incorrectly stated I was an AES member, even though I never was. I met many of the members and attended two AES functions after being invited to by Bill Prymak, but only because Bill initially appeared to be supportive of Joe Gervais and myself. I was never interested in joining the AES, people who knew me were aware I worked as an independent researcher only. Bill Prymak, as the AES President, as if it was always a main agenda of his, worked tirelessly at controlling the sway of the media and adjusting the public attitude towards all Irene-Amelia information. No doubt because of my devotion to the now late Joe Gervais, and my long term support of his decades worth of Earhart investigative research, my person and my efforts ended up singled out by both TIGHAR and the AES in negative ways. Such is life in the world of Amelia Earhart investigative research, though. Self-proclaimed 'important' Earhart enthusiasts exist out there that not only include Bill Prymak, but late comer Dave Horner, the dogmatic Ron Bright, Carol Linn Dow, Elgen Long, Richard Gillespie and the list goes on. They appear to operate from a stance of keeping the American public in the dark with misinformation distribution, especially when it comes to the most important facts that have long characterized the Irene-Amelia truth. One might even consider, because of their guarded inside tracks of media influence, they functionally steer the press and therefore the public away from recognizing and accepting the obvious Irene-Amelia forensic realities. None of them ever disproved the Irene-Amelia claim, rather, they choose to address the topic as if others disproved it at some point, when no one ever actually did.

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The Earhart Enigma: Retracing Amelia's Last Flight by Dave Horner, Pelican Publishing Company-2013:

Dave Horner spent several years working closely with the Amelia Earhart Society's ('AES') founder, the now late, Bill Prymak. Thus, it's no surprise his book steered clear of supporting the reality of Amelia's return to the United States as 'Irene.' Foe decades, Bill Prymak, a known 'insider' worked to make sure the public didn't pay too much attention to the Irene-Amelia reality. So much exudes from the pages of The Earhart Enigma, just as it did from Dave Bowman's revised edition of Legerdemain, also heavily influenced by Prymak. Typically, just as Tighar's Richard Gillespie always did, Horner questioned the veracity of the famous Monsignor James Francis Kelley's conveyance that he had helped receive Amelia back in the U.S. after the war and aided with her identity change. Horner interviewed Kelley's nephew, the now late Red McBride, who was unable to come to terms with it all. Red McBride had a hard time believing his uncle helped Amelia at all after the war. Dave Horner also consulted with the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's 1934 born son, Clarence 'Larry' Heller, who correctly avowed that his mother was not Amelia Earhart. It is evident Dave Horner, who when he began writing his book was a relative new-comer to the world of Earhart research, had been subjugated by Bill Prymak's obsession to oppose anything that supported Amelia's post-loss ongoing survival as a renamed person. That in itself was odd where Bill Prymak had long been known to support the, "Amelia was picked up and sequestered by Japan" findings of previous investigators, yet he always vehemently argued against the suggestion of Amelia Earhart surviving and eventually returning to the U.S. Otherwise, Horner's effort is a doggedly over-written book half-filled with useless information--and featuring an off-base conclusion. Basically, it contains everything Bill Prymak accumulated from other investigative researchers (to include much research data from Joe Gervais) ever since he chartered the Amelia Earhart Society in 1989. Horner did expound heavily on researcher, Darryl Bollinger's research on the 'message in the bottle' found by Frenchman, Genevieve Barrat when it washed up on the beach at Soulac-sur-Mer in October of 1938, a message that appeared to verify that Amelia Earhart ended up in the Marshall Islands under the auspice of Japan's Naval Authority. It appears Dave Horner concluded that as well, while stressing that Amelia must have 'died' somehow while in Japan's custody--just as Fred Goerner, Thomas Devine, Vincent Loomis, Bill Prymak and several others already did before him. Forensically, Mr. Horner was amiss by not addressing the discovered reality of more than one person having been attributed to the same 'Irene' identity, and the head to toe and character trait congruence the post-war only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile displayed when compared to Amelia Again, though, it is likely he was pursuaded not to by Bill Prymak. When it comes to the full historic record, Dave Horner's book is unique in the way it includes so many of the less seen Earhart world flight related letters and documents. That was no small undertaking in itself, surely made easier with the exclusive access Mr. Horner was granted, that enabled him to peruse Prymak's Amelia Earhart Society files.

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TRUTH AND REALITY
GO HAND IN HAND
 

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DIGITAL FACE RECOGNITION


 According to record--and per Digital Face Recognition and the rest of the analysis results, there was a lady pilot by the name of 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' who was acquainted with Amelia Earhart in the 1930s. Said 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' earned her pilot's license in the late Spring of 1933. At the same time she did, though, she learned she was pregnant out of wedlock and barely flew again after that--and she let her license expire after 1936.
 
Below, from The Swindell Study, the 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' identified in the 1965 photograph, was not the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Rather, the first ever conducted, 'comprehensive forensic analysis' orchestrated by Tod Swindell, in no uncertain terms surfaced her to have been the former Amelia Earhart, who had assumed the left-over identity of the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile after World War Two. There is virtually no doubt such a thing as this happened anymore, no matter how some individuals, or wikipedia for that matter as well, may still try to convince the general public otherwise. It is equally clear at this point, the secrecy that protected Amelia Earhart's post-war re-identification the last half of the Twentieth Century, in a way formed the modern basis for what became known as, "the mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance."
 

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AMELIA, 1937

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Digital Face Recognition Results: POSITIVE

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POST-WAR ONLY IRENE

Below: The original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile in 1930, next to her husband, Charles in an enhanced newsprint photo. Amelia Earhart first knew the original Irene's aunt, a prominent attorney by the name of Irene Rutherford O'Crowley, who she had met through the Zonta organization. 

CHARLES AND IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE
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1930 NEWSPRINT PHOTO

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NOTE: Below find a few published books either authored by, or strongly influenced by high-profile individuals who historically opposed the Irene-Amelia truth. All of the authors below represent mere private citizens who set out to capitalize egotistically and/or financially by way of exploiting Amelia Earhart's legendary fame. Yet the Irene-Amelia truth still remained through any and all efforts made to dispute it, and it was never disavowed (even while he was in the cross-hairs of his various combatants) by World War Two hero Joe Gervais, from the time he first recognized the Irene he met in 1965 as having been the former Amelia Earhart... to when he passed away forty years later in 2005. In any case, the following influential 'private citizen' individuals separately arose into view by the 1980s and 1990s, after their 'inside track' efforts afforded them media attention. Be advised, none of them ever came close to offering an 'officially accepted' conclusion regarding the fate of Amelia Earhart. They also offered completely different from each other theories, while individually claiming the best and most reliable information, and combined ascertainment that it was impossible for Amelia to have lived to return to the U.S. with a new identity.
 
 
Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved by Elgen M. Long and Marie K. Long, Simon & Schuster-2001
 
Elgen Long has received consistent 'Earhart Mystery' media attention since the late 1970s. His work ignores all previous investigative research findings, while claiming to have calculated where Earhart's plane went down and sank in the Pacific. However, his various trips to find it came up empty. He was a long time friend of Amelia's Sister, Muriel Earhart Morrissey... Muriel, who was also Zonta sister friends with Irene-Amelia, AKA her former 'true sister' in the non-recognized historical sense. Hailing from the Reno, Nevada-Lake Tahoe area, it was later learned Irene-Amelia had traveled there to 'meet with people' in the 1960s. (One photo of Irene-Amelia taken in Reno shows her standing next to an unidentified catholic priest, another shows her standing on a downtown Reno street amid various casino signs.) With Muriel's support and sometimes in his company, for years Mr. Long promoted what was also the between-the-lines U. S. government preference for people to accept how Amelia Earhart 'simply crashed and sank and that was it.' And so much is what Elgen and his wife, Marie's 2001 book conveyed. Nothing new, it marked the Earhart family's and the original Irene Craigmile's family preferred viewpoint, as well as the 'traditionally safest' and most convenient solution to an otherwise complicated historical issue. I met Elgen Long twice, in 2002 in Oakland and in 2004 at the annual Amelia Earhart Festival held in Atchison, Kansas. I found him to be a very nice and charismatic fellow, even though I disagreed with his ability to ignore and even obscure most all of the Briand, Gervais, and Goerner previously amassed investigative research findings.   
 
 
Amelia Earhart's Shoes: Is The Mystery Solved? by Thomas L. King, Randall S. Jacobsen, Karen Ramey Burns, and Kenton Spading, Altamira Press, 2004
 
This is one of two TIGHAR (The International Group of Historic Aircraft Recovery) supportive books. TIGHAR has received the second highest amount of consistent 'Earhart mystery' media attention as compared to Elgen Long since the 1980s. The book's title refers to a shoe heel found on Nikumororo Island of the Phoenix Islands group. The Authors claimed it came from one of Amelia's shoes. (It was later proven to have not come from a shoe of Amelia's size.) As well, it was all but generally ignored by the Authors, (evidently) how previous ship groundings and even an attempt at habitation on the island had no doubt accounted for the various items they found there over time, and then tried to link to the Earhart flight; (a piece of plexiglass, a scrap of aluminum, etc.) Plus the Navy had conducted a thorough fly-over search of the island just days after Earhart was reported missing. TIGHAR initially cited anomalous post-loss radio signals heard to have supposedly come from the Island, as what caused them to look there in the first place. They claimed Earhart and Noonan went down on the Island of Nikumororo (previously known as 'Gardner Island') where they radioed for help for three days, before the tide came in and took their plane out to sea where it sank in deep water, leaving them to die of starvation and thirst. As Irene-Amelia herself once wrote to a friend, "If you believe this, you'll believe anything." Incidentally, and no surprise, the people who wrote this book never spoke highly of Beyond 37's investigative research efforts.     
 
 
Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance by Ric Gillespie, U.S. Naval Institute Press-2006
 
Richard Gillespie self founded the TIGHAR organization back in the 1980s. In 1990 Life Magazine reported his claim that he had 'solved the mystery.' Of course he had not, his misleading claim notwithstanding. He's probably appeared on more TV shows than anyone else promoting his initially self-propelled Nikumororo theory later advocated by the book 'Amelia Earhart's Shoes,' co-authored by four sedulous devotees of his. He followed their effort with this one of his own the following year, 'Finding Amelia.' The fact that the U.S. Naval Institute Press at all published it might hint at one to understand how far the U.S. Navy itself prefers to steer away from having to address the more substantial amount of authenticated  controversial Earhart investigative research. Note: Both Elgen Long's and Richard Gillespie's claims are considered 'safe history offers' through the eyes of the U.S. Government and national media sources, when compared to the previous works of Briand, Gervais, and Goerner..., and of course the 1965 spoken words of Admiral Chester Nimitz. (See the Home page 'Amelia at the microphone' photo link.) I have bantered a time or two with Ric Gillespie over the years. He has described those who endorse the words of Admiral Nimitz about Earhart to his TIGHAR club members as 'people from a dark, cold and desolate planet called Conspiritar.' Beyond 37' disagrees there was a vast conspiracy.

NOTE: All of the books featured on this page do not include the multitude of conventional Amelia Earhart biographies published over the years, nor does it include Amelia Earhart's own published works. 

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