|
2020 Amelia Earhart
Vision
This website was
launched in 2007, amid an in-progress 'forensic research study' being conducted by an investigative journalist. It profiles
the first-ever objective analysis of Amelia Earhart's
1937 'disappearance' and 'missing person case' to compare two women pilots from the 1930s; Amelia Earhart and Irene O'Crowley
Craigmile. Over the past two decades
the now completed study grew to be recognized as the most comprehensive evaluation of Amelia Earhart's failed world-flight
attempt to date. It is also the first to offer a bona fide forensic answer to what became of Amelia.
| |
Above & combined with Amelia Earhart below:
The post-World War Two only,
Irene O'Crowley Craigmile.
|
Above & enhanced below: The original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. This once aspiring pilot was acquainted with Amelia Earhart. Here she is shown with her first husband in 1930, a civil engineer named, 'Charles James Craigmile.'
Below: The
original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile is
shown in 1934 with her son. History has it that after Charles Craigmile died, she married Guy Bolam of England in 1958. History is inaccurate here. This Irene O'Crowley Craigmile was never married to Guy Bolam, although she once knew the person who was, shown on the left, who used her same identity after World War Two.
|
|
| From Charles J. Craigmile's obituary |
|
To understand
the significance of the new millennium forensic study--and the images above--it is essential to revisit a controversial story that made national news some fifty-years ago:
|
|
Above:
A newspaper photo shows the post-World War Two only, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam in November of 1970.
|
Most people who heard about this story chalked it up as a hoax.
It wasn't a hoax. Before the surname of
'Bolam' was added to it in 1958, the name of 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' had been attributed to a 1930s' pilot who had flown
with Amelia Earhart. Except by the time World War Two began, the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile no longer appeared
in plain view. The study displays this reality in no uncertain terms. It was through her aunt,
a prominent attorney by the name of Irene Rutherford O'Crowley,
that the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile and Amelia became acquainted with each other. (Amelia had earlier befriended the
original Irene's attorney-aunt through the Zonta organization.)
The story about the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's
identity being reapplied to the former Amelia Earhart, began to take form in the mid-1960s. It
was based on a well researched study when it surfaced in 1970--before
it swiftly went away from the public
mindset--something
initially propelled by the instant denial from the woman
in question, the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, shown in the above-right news photo. Presently, if anyone has a hard time believing, accepting, or
recognizing that the person shown refuting the claim in the above news photo was the former
Amelia Earhart--keep going. You soon will recognize it. The analysis results left it obvious.
To account for why she refused to admit her past identity, after avoiding direct interaction with the investigator who first realized--and then became intent on outing her for who she used to be--the former Amelia Earhart chose to lay-low and prepare a press conference to be held after the book inspired by
the investigator's research, Amelia Earhart Lives, by Joe Klaas, was published. True to her objective, as soon as it
was released into the marketplace, during the short but forceful press conference she held at the famous Time-Life Building in New York
City, the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam sternly denounced the book's contents, most specifically where
it included the implication that she was the survived Amelia Earhart living under an assumed identity. Then after
fielding no questions, she marched out of the room. She was angry, and upset for a long time afterward. Who could
blame her? No one knew what she went through before she became known as Irene and she was not about to start explaining it
to anybody. Conversely, had she admitted her true past then, such an explanation and more would have been demanded of her.
By virtue
of the Twenty-First Century forensic analysis results, the
first Irene-Amelia comparison study on record, any further it is undeniable that the person refuting her past in the above photo
was previously known as, 'Amelia Earhart'.
|
Above left, Amelia; above right, she is combined with her later life self as, 'Irene'.
|
Amelia as Irene at her 1970 press conference. She had no other choice but to deny her famous past.
|
|
Senator Hiram Bingham & Amelia Earhart
|
Above: Distinguished and proud with her trademark wings and pearls is the post-World
War Two only, 'Irene O'Crowley
Craigmile'. (Surname 'Bolam'
added in 1958.) She was identified
nowhere as 'Irene' prior to the end of
World War Two. During the post-war era she emerged from out of the blue working at
a bank in Mineola, New York, close to the Long Island airfield where she chartered the 99's women's flying organization seventeen years earlier. Anymore it is obvious, she was not the original, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Rather, she was the former Amelia Earhart.
~~~
|
|
|
Shirley Dobson Gilroy's classic 1985, "artistic
tribute to Amelia Earhart"
book, Amelia / Pilot In Pearls
|
|
It may seem
hard to decipher and it proved hard to explain as well, but today, people who do not recognize the obvious human plurality
discovered about Irene O'Crowley Craigmile, and how Amelia
Earhart played into it by becoming further known as, 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' after World War Two, have either been misinformed
or are in denial when it comes to the true, life-long physical history of Amelia Earhart's person. Was her name change
the result of a well orchestrated, Federal Witness Protection Program? More than likely, yes. A link to former FBI Director,
J. Edgar Hoover's involvement with Amelia's well-cloaked existence in the United States from the mid-1940s on until he died in 1972, is noticeable. His World
War Two FBI file on Amelia Earhart featured several accounts of her ongoing existence during the war. This, when coupled with his late war-time and post-war years alliance with Monsignor James Francis Kelley, offers some insight.
"He did speak of knowing Amelia Earhart but I never met her in his company." A
quote from Monsignor Thomas Ivory of West Orange, New Jersey, a past friend of Monsignor Kelley's who presided over his 1996
funeral.
Above: Monsignor James Francis Kelley and Archbishop Thomas
Walsh award FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover with an LLD degree in 1944. A few months after World War Two ended, J. Edgar Hoover
awarded Monsignor Kelley a commendation for assistance he had rendered to the Department of Justice.
|
|
|
Rockville, Illinois TV news reporter, Merrill 'Dean'
Magley, and his wife, Carol, visited and spoke at length with Monsignor James Francis Kelley in 1987, at the Monsignor's Rumson,
New Jersey home. After doing so, both were convinced the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam
used to be known as, 'Amelia Earhart.'
|
"After all she had been through, she didn't want to be the famous
Amelia Earhart anymore." Monsignor James Francis Kelley as spoken
to reporter Merrill Dean Magley in 1987.
Above left: A 1982 newspaper article quotes Monsignor
James Francis Kelley (1902-1996) in reference to his later life close friend, the post-World
War Two only, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, AKA the former Amelia Earhart, who he is pictured
with on the right in 1978. During the last decade of his life, Father Kelley admitted to select individuals
that he had helped with Amelia's return to the U.S. and he was instrumental with the process of her assuming the left over
identity of Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. He also mentioned he served as a post-war 'spiritual guide' for her.
A
past president of Seton Hall College who came to know many famous people during the course of his lifetime, Father Kelley
held PhD's in philosophy and psychology. Yet from the time he disclosed what he did about Amelia, dissenters and non-believers
tried to claim later life senility caused him to 'make up' what he did about his long time friend, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile.
(The post-war only.) People who knew him well, however, spoke of how Father Kelley was 'lucid' when he described
what he did to them about Amelia Earhart's hidden post-loss survival and subsequent identity change.
|
Monsignor James Francis Kelley introduces LPGA golfer, Janey Blalock to Pope Paul VI
|
Monsignor Kelley with then New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne and his wife, Jean; Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn and his wife, Luisa; and the LPGA's, Sandra Palmer.
|
Monsignor Kelley with First Lady Betty Ford and Marge Montana
|
From above, the 'sports figures' and
LPGA connection to Monsignor Kelley is worth recalling here. Father Kelley had been a friend of LPGA promoter, Peter Busatti,
and he introduced Irene to Mr. Bussatti and famous lady golfers as well. (See the 'hot air balloon'
and 'Busatti' photos directly below.) Amelia's last residence before she went missing backed up to
a golf course fairway in Toluca Lake of North Hollywood, California. As well, when she was known as 'Irene' in the 1970s,
her New Jersey home backed up to a golf course fairway that belonged to the Forsgate Country Club that she was known to frequent,
and where LPGA tournaments sometimes took place.
The above 'hot air balloon' newspaper photo taken in 1980, features the
post-World War Two only, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, accompanied by famous golfer, Kathy Whitworth.
Especially in the 1970s, after taking over as a division head for Radio Luxembourg, when she was simply known as 'Irene' to
friends and associates of hers, by then the former Amelia Earhart had grown to be respected and admired by important people
not only in the United States--but globally as well. Those who were aware of who she used to be, of course,
never spoke much about her.
"All the admirals and generals seemed to know her." LPGA promoter, Peter Bussatti, in 1982, comments above about
his friend, the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam. Mr. Busatti was well liked by famous LPGA golfers, including Nancy Lopez, and as
noted, Sandra Palmer, Janey Blalock, and Kathy Whitworth. His death from cancer in 1988 when he was only 57, was considered
a great loss to the LPGA community. Below: The post-war only Irene with LPGA promoter, Peter Busatti in 1975
Above left, the post-World War
Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile; Above center, the post-war only Irene & Amelia superimposed;
Above right, a profile photo of Amelia Earhart.
"Peter
Busatti said he accompanied Mrs. Bolam to the Wings Club in New York City
on one occasion. He said a full length portrait of Amelia Earhart hangs in the room dedicated in her honor. ""It
was a dead ringer for Irene,"" he said. ""Sometimes I thought she was, sometimes I thought
she wasn't. Once when I asked her directly she replied, "When I die you'll find out,"" Busatti said. At a Wings Club event in Washington, Busatti
mentioned how, ""All the admirals and generals seemed to know her."" Excerpted from a 1982 New Jersey
News Tribune article where when interviewed, Mr. Busatti openly commented about his suspicion that
his 1970s' & 80s' friend, the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, used to be known as, "Amelia
Earhart."
|
Tod Swindell
|
"After her husband,
Charles Craigmile, tragically died in 1931, the newly-widowed original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile (above) began learning to be a pilot
in October of 1932. She earned her license in May of 1933, but realized she was pregnant out of wedlock right after doing
so. She hardly flew again
after that, having experienced a 'shotgun
marriage' that quickly failed and was later annulled after she gave birth to her son in 1934, and she did not renew her
pilot's license after 1936. Compared to Amelia and Viola Gentry, who were both acquainted with her, she was barely heard of
as a pilot back then either. She was never a 99's member like they were and it would have been unrealistic for her to later
become a member of the affluent New York Wings Club, let alone be distinguished like royalty there among her peers. Contrarily,
the people who knew the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile as the former
Amelia Earhart, and indeed there were some who did, were always mindful and respectful of who she used to be. Recall as well,
until it made national news in 1970, hardly a soul had ever heard of the name, 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile' before, as was
the intention." Tod Swindell
|
|
After the war, J. Edgar Hoover awarded a commendation medal to Monsignor
James Francis Kelley for his service to his country. Father Kelley's 1987 published memoirs mentioned the award but did not
provide details for why he received it.
The answer ended up being revealed by Kelley himself. During a recorded interview conducted
in 1991, Father Kelley mentioned to Earhart investigator, Rollin C. Reineck, that he had written a chapter in his memoirs
about his post-war experiences with Amelia Earhart and her becoming known as 'Irene' for the remainder of her days, except
he added it had been omitted from the final version. The explanation found in his book under its cover image below, likely
explains why the decision was made to leave it out, and why any mention of Amelia or his later life close friendship with
her when she was known as Irene was left out as well:
In his 1987 published memoirs, Monsignor James
Francis Kelley included the following passage in his "My Reasons For Writing This Book" chapter that begins on
page 10: "My
reason for not wanting anyone else to do my story was that I knew many of my files contained some very personal and intimate
stories about many people, prominent nationally and internationally. I felt that to allow someone else to have access to
these documents could result in the publication of data about people who could not defend themselves." Below, taken
from a September 17, 1991 tape-recorded interview with Monsignor Kelley conducted by former Air Force Colonel,
Rollin C. Reineck: COL. REINECK: We believe Jackie Cochran was sent to Japan to help bring Amelia
home. Are you aware of that?MSGR. KELLEY: Yes, I was involved with that. COL. REINECK:
If you have things of hers [Earhart's] I would like to see them. You are aware that she was Irene
Bolam?MSGR. KELLEY: What? COL. REINECK: Amelia Earhart was Irene Bolam?
MSGR. KELLEY: That's right, yes. [Further below, note another war-time commendation Monsignor Kelley received
from Henry P. Morgenthau Jr.] ~~~
Looking Back: Then and Now
Since 1970, and still to this day, the Smithsonian
Institution has continued to field the question of whether or not Amelia Earhart quietly survived her 1937 disappearance
and eventually changed her name. While it has always managed to fend off the curious with negative sounding replies, it
is worth noting the Smithsonian never examined the claim itself, nor was the claim ever disproved.
This is because the controversy over Amelia's ongoing existence
with a different name managed to avoid being forensically evaluated back then and therefore was never falsified.
Rather, the public was conditioned to believe it was a false claim by news media sources, Amelia Earhart's family, and the family
of the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Hindsight shows it is hard to blame the Smithsonian for never taking the lead here. As a ward of the
U.S. federal government it is obliged to honor 'governmental protocol' where certain controversial subject matters are
concerned. Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance was one of them. As Dr. Tom Crouch of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space
Museum once put it, "We do not favor any particular Earhart mystery solving theory." If one looks at the past
track record of the Smithsonian's expressed viewpoints toward it, this is easy to discern.
Beyond the restriction placed on the Smithsonian that has long prevented it from independently investigating
the claim of Amelia Earhart's post-loss existence with a
different name, in the interim it was ascertained that the U.S. federal government had covered-up an unreported 'different
version' of Amelia Earhart's 1937 world flight ending by way of its executive branch. Note: "What that woman [Earhart], happened to her the last few minutes, I hope I've just got to never
make it public." These were the words of FDR right hand man, Henry P. Morgenthau Jr., concerning something else that
took place during Amelia Earhart's world flight ending and outcome the White House withheld from the public. Other revealing
quotes appeared adjacent to it in a 1938 dated, official White House transcript that surfaced four decades after Amelia
Earhart's famous world flight took place.
Above: Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. (left) and President Franklin
Roosevelt (right) were aware of a different version of Amelia Earhart's world flight ending they never made public.
The above excerpt came from the aforementioned 'official
White House transcript' dated May 13, 1938, nine months after Amelia Earhart went missing. Amelia was still considered a 'missing
person' at the time. The top paragraph features the end of a conversation between Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt's
secretary, Malvina Scheider. Miss Scheider had contacted Mr. Morgenthau about a letter sent to him by the First Lady expressing
the interest of individuals who were convinced Amelia survived her world flight outcome in Japan's mandate
islands--and they felt another search and rescue attempt on Amelia's behalf was in order. There were eight people present
at a White House meeting Morgenthau was holding at the time the above conversation took place, that was recorded by Dictaphone.
After his conversation with Miss Scheider ended, Morgenthau, who was FDR's Secretary of the Treasury and a long time personal
friend and confidant, turned to his Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Stephen Gibbons, to help him qualify to the others
why the White House believed further searching for Amelia Earhart was pointless. Gibbons' "We have evidence that the
thing is all over, sure, terrible, it would be awful to make it public" response closed the door on further hope that
Amelia Earhart might still be found to those in attendance that day--even though whatever 'evidence' the
White House had, it was not Amelia Earhart's body. The main scuttlebutt had been that the 'last few minutes of Earhart's flight' Morgenthau
referred to concerned a relay suggesting Earhart and Noonan were intercepted and fired upon as they entered Japan's Marshall
Islands air space. The hushed White House understanding was the two had perished that way, even though there was no absolute
certainty such a thing was true. In any case, based on her conversation with Morgenthau, below
was Malvina Scheider's reply she forwarded to the First Lady:
Below, Malvina
"Tommy" Scheider on the left and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the right in 1936. Malvina Scheider's duties were
many; she was a close friend, personal advisor, gatekeeper, press secretary, and image protector for Mrs. Roosevelt. She made
her mark in the White House as the first, 'First Lady' staffer whose role was not limited to that of a social secretary.
A note
from Tod Swindell: The original response Malvina Scheider forwarded to Eleanor Roosevelt included words that suggested
Amelia's reputation would be 'ruined' if the White House disclosed all it knew to the public about what happened during the
time of her disappearance. [Morgenthau had mentioned this in front of the eight people in attendance when his May 13, 1938
conversation with Malvina Scheider took place.] In the above version I took the liberty to omit those words. It was my feeling
it was added fodder, or 'negative flavoring' that was included by Morgenthau to Malvina that he knew would better persuade
the First Lady to demur--should more inquiries about Amelia Earhart's disappearance come her way. And it worked. Mrs. Roosevelt
immediately adapted the policy. My feeling remains, though, nothing Amelia did then could or would have 'ruined' her reputation.
Just the same, for the record here is the full version:
A curious side note that relates to the same year
of 1938, the subsequent time period of 1938 to 1941, and Henry P. Morgenthau Jr.; in his 1987 published memoirs on page 367,
Monsignor James Francis Kelley wrote of his having received the following: "July 11, 1941, received a citation and medal
from the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, for 'three years of patriotic service with integrity and dilligence
for the Treasury Department of the United States of America.'" Again, Father Kelley's memoirs failed to explain what
he was doing for the treasury department those three years that led to his citation award. Today it is hard to overlook the
fact, given what is now known about his post-war involvement with the former Amelia Earhart, that from 1938 to 1945, Father
Kelley ended up being held in high esteem by both Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover, two top players from the executive
branch and department of justice housed by the U.S. federal government.
Cut To The 1960s The same high-government-level attitude toward Amelia Earhart's loss remained in place decades later. For instance, in 1966, when CBS radio journalist, Fred Goerner, disclosed U.S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz' admission
of how it was "known and documented in Washington" that "Earhart and Noonan went down in the Marshall Islands
and were picked up by Japan", coupled with retired U.S. Navy Commander, John Pillsbury's 1962 comment to Goerner where
he intimated what really happened to Earhart and Noonan would, "stagger the imagination", the federal government's
executive branch and its Federal Bureau of Investigation, (the FBI) remained ominously silent.
Above, CBS radio journalist, Fred Goerner's 1966 groundbreaking book about Amelia Earhart's disappearance
that virtually exposed an ongoing cover-up in Washington, was
a top-ten New York Times "best
seller" for several weeks after it was published. As detailed and revealing as it was, however, the U.S. federal government
offered no opinion about its contents. Cut To The 1970s Four years later, in 1970, after the claim of Amelia Earhart's ongoing survival with a different name
surfaced, when he was asked about it President Nixon dryly replied,
"We don't discuss that subject around here." [That 'subject' being 'Earhart' and 'around
here' being 'the White House'.] Below: President
Richard Nixon in 1970
Where President Nixon's legacy associates his name with the Watergate
scandal, it is worth recalling he served as Vice President under the famous World War Two General-turned-President, Dwight
D. Eisenhower, from 1953 to 1961. It can be said, eight years after World War Two ended when Eisenhower took office, he stood
to inherit an unresolved issue or two left behind by the Truman and FDR administrations. No doubt one of them was the pre-World
War Two debacle of Earhart's loss--and the ongoing war-time controversy over what actually
happened to her--that featured a tightly-sealed lid. Richard Nixon may not have known what was in that 'sealed' Earhart container,
but he certainly knew not to touch it. It was no surprise then, how as rumblings about Earhart continued to grow into the
mid-1970s, to be repeated in quiet circles on Capitol Hill, the case of Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance
grew to casually be referred to as, "FDR's Watergate."
In a 1999
interview with Bill Prymak, the founding president of the Amelia Earhart Society of Researchers, he referenced an AES newsletter
that described the war-time account of one James Golden, (shown above) that surfaced in 1978. Golden had served in the Pacific during World
War Two and later ended up working for the U.S. justice department. James Golden had learned
of Amelia Earhart's and her navigator, Fred Noonan's post-loss survival under Japan's stewardship after they were picked up in the Marshall
Islands--and
were first taken to Jaluit--then on to Maloelap--and then on to Kwajalein there. He did not know what became of them after that, (he
suspected they died while in Japan's custody) but his information came from a classified report he described--that was assembled after
the U.S. occupied the Marshall Islands in 1944, then sent by a Marine division to U.S. Naval Intelligence. Golden felt that FDR, who was known for his proclivity for secrecy, would
surely have been made aware of it, and there is little doubt he was correct. James Golden later cited
how back in May of 1938, when Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. was forwarded the query letter by Eleanor Roosevelt that asked if the
idea of conducting more searches for Amelia Earhart was possible for the White House to consider, the request was denied
based on this and other information the White House had--that led it to determine more search efforts were not practical at the time. Recall in 1938, the advent of the Sino-Japanese War--a war the U.S. was newly (and secretly)
supporting China's fight against Japan with its Flying Tigers effort, left FDR's hands tied when it came to further challenging
Japan about Earhart. As well, beyond FDR appearing to firmly adhere to isolationism, the U.S. military was not yet ready for
war and therefore not about to provoke Japan. According to Henry P. Morgenthau Jr.'s response to Malvina Scheider,
neither he nor the president had disclosed the post-loss Earhart information they shared to the First Lady prior to her May of 1938 query.
As noted, he did however, mention to her that he was willing to discuss the matter with Mrs. Roosevelt later if she wanted
to hear the, "not very nice story" the White House claimed to know about what really happened to her friend, Amelia,
after she was declared missing. [This is all documented and part of the public record of Amelia Earhart's world flight ending.]
Above, friends Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart.
Below,
the post-World
War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's 1965 photographed image superimposed with Amelia's above.
Continued
from above: To rebuff any future suspicion within its own inner circle, via Morgenthau and Gibbons, the White House claimed it held 'evidence' that 'it was all over' as far as any further
hope in finding Amelia Earhart was concerned. Yet, that simply wasn't true. The executive branch only held intelligence reports
it was calling 'evidence.' In the meantime, any suggestion that the duo might still be
alive in Japan's custody was all-but eliminated within the executive branch constituency at that time, even though it is a sure
bet FDR himself still considered it in the realm of possibilities, if he didn't outright know such a thing. Here, consider the following
archived sentence from J. Edgar Hoover's World War Two FBI file on Amelia Earhart. Within it, a U.S. soldier recovering at
Walter Reed Hospital who had escaped from being held as a Japanese POW, relayed to an FBI agent how in 1944, while being
held captive and having heard that Amelia Earhart remained in Japan's custody, he was told the following by a Japanese officer
who he had asked about Amelia: "Don't worry about her well being, she is perfectly alright." (See the file
excerpt directly below and more details about J. Edgar Hoover's interest further down.) This was just one among several accounts
the FBI collected that described Amelia Earhart's ongoing war-time existence under Japan's stewardship, and it is at least probable that not only
J. Edgar Hoover, who personally commandeered the Earhart file, but FDR as well was privy to them. Note the standard 'blackout'
of the soldier's name and the FBI agent's name:
History revealed
that FDR kept some of his inner circle at arm's length from what he actually knew much of the time. With the Earhart
case it was best, he felt, and surely Morgenthau agreed with him, to impress upon most executive branch constituents that
the dark inner knowledge [or White House theory, really...] of Amelia Earhart's demise was to remain hidden from
the public. The translation of this left the public to assume Earhart and Noonan simply missed Howland Island and ended up
perishing in the vast Pacific Ocean. That worked for awhile, and Earhart and Noonan were both declared
'dead in absentia' by the time 1939 arrived. Except after the Pearl Harbor attack, from different sources, soldiers stationed
in the Pacific began hearing that Earhart and Noonan had survived a Marshall Islands ditching and ended up in Japan's custody
or stewardship in one way or another. Then after the war ended, many individuals from the region Earhart went missing
in came forward with first or second hand accounts. [Note: FDR died a few months before the war ended leaving him to take what he
knew to his grave.] The accounts commonly stated that Earhart and Noonan, even if they had been
fired upon, did manage to ditch their plane on a reef in the lower Marshalls where days later, as the Marco Polo Bridge incident
occurred that triggered the start of the Sino-Japanese War, the two were picked-up by Japan's Imperial Navy. This version of Amelia
Earhart's world flight ending continues to be repeated in the Marshall Islands by its general population and government officials
today. Below left is a 1987 '50th anniversary' commemorative stamp issued
by the Republic of the Marshall Islands, depicting Earhart and Noonan's July of 1937 rescue by Japan's Imperial Navy and the
recovery of Amelia's Lockheed Electra. Below right is a 2002 Associate Press clipping featuring the expressed opinion of Alfred
Capelle, the U.N. Ambassador to the Marshall Islands.
|
"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.
|
|
|
My friend,
Randall Brink, wrote the classic 1994 Amelia Earhart investigative book, Lost Star: The Search For Amelia Earhart. It became an international best seller. Connie Chung profiled it in a special CBS
news segment. I first came to know Randall in 1996, when I tracked him down to interview him about his past collaboration
with renowned Earhart investigator, Joseph A. Gervais. Randall had included the following sentence in the wrap-up of his book,
and I wanted to know more about it: "One tantalizingly persistent account has Amelia supposedly returning to the U.S. and assuming
a new identity." A "tantalizingly persistent account." Right away one notices while the 'Amelia lived-on and changed her name
to Irene' controversy was quickly dismissed in 1970, it never actually went away according to Randall Brink, Joseph A. Gervais,
and several other noteworthy Amelia Earhart scholars. Famous crime novelist, Max Allan Collins, (of 'Road to Perdition'
fame) had his well researched 'Earhart historical novel', Flying Blind, published in 1998. Within it, Collins referred
to Randall Brink's, Lost Star as "the most convincing, coherent, and credible inquiry." This automatically
included the new post-war allies of the United States and Japan quietly ending up being joined at the hip in what became the
ongoing, 'Earhart disappearance cover-up'. Collins had included a segment in his book about the suggestion of Amelia Earhart
quietly living-on and changing her name to Irene and was perplexed by the possibility of it being true. This late 1990s time period was when I commenced
with orchestrating a forensic analysis in order to determine the reality of it all. From an article by Amelia Earhart
investigative journalist, Tod Swindell
|
|
Irene-Amelia.com exists as the most truthful and revealing Amelia Earhart
website on the internet. It has never been overchallenged because it displays the forensic truth about what became of Amelia
Earhart after she went missing in 1937.
~~~
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam ~~~
If you are interested in knowing what became of Amelia Earhart after
the summer of 1937, the answer is seen in the above mid-1970s photo-portrait. To understand how this is now known to be true,
take your time going through the material this website presents. There is much to digest.
~~~
Forensic: Relating to or denoting applications of scientific methodology
during the course of an investigation in an effort to determine the true origin of what is being investigated. Example:
"They got him on ballistics; a forensic analysis determined the bullet came from his gun." Forensic Evidence: That suitable for argumentation in a court of law. ~~~ Irene
Compared To Amelia: Photographic Exactitude
Personal Character Traits Life-Long
Histories
The forensic research and forensic comparison results you are about to review are part of a long-term study
that thoroughly analyzed each of the above topics pertaining to the historically recognized, 'intertwined lives' of
Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile Bolam. The 'new millennium' study was conceived and arranged in order to get
to the bottom of a never disavowed assertion publicly maintained for thirty-five years [1970-2005] by former USAF Captain,
Joseph A. Gervais (1924-2005). After deeply looking into it, Joseph A. Gervais, who retired from the Air Force as a Major in
1963, ascertained that Amelia Earhart and Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam had existed as
the same life-long individual human being known by different names in different eras without public awareness.
Major Gervais
served as a fighter pilot in World War Two and he flew missions in the Korean War and Vietnam as well before retiring from
his military career. He was also a family man noted for his good character. Generally unrealized into the new millennium, Joseph
A. Gervais' assertion about Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam was never forensically over-challenged. This is because, as you will soon identify for yourself,
it was true. After
meeting and getting to know Joseph A. Gervais in the late 1990s, and finding out that his assertion about Mrs. Irene Craigmile
Bolam had never been forensically evaluated on a serious level, research and development specialist, Tod Swindell took it
to task. After consulting with a variety of forensic experts his long-term study commenced, and the end result marked the
first comprehensive forensic analysis to ever compare Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam to Amelia Earhart.
Prior to his passing in 2005, upon
being shown the initial results of the analysis with his wife, Thelma, Joseph A. Gervais plainly commented, "It just
shows what we've known all along." Over the years people have countered time and again, "what about
DNA?" This proved unavailable. When she died in 1982, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam donated her body to Rutger's Medical
College in New Jersey with a pre-written stipulation it was only to be accessed by its attending medical technicians. In response
to what became of her remains, the school replied her body was cremated and interned in a common grave. Hence, just as Amelia
Earhart's body was purported to have 'never been seen again' after July 2, 1937; after Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam died on
July 7, 1982, her body was never seen again either, at least, not outside the walls of Rutger's Medical College. The catch was, as the
analysis realized, there was an original Irene Craigmile who Amelia Earhart knew in
the 1930s, and whose identity she ended up assuming for herself to use in the United States after the World War Two years.
Learn more about the original Irene Craigmile throughout this website,
and how Amelia Earhart ended up acquiescing her identity for her own post-fame years use. ~~~
Below:
Photographic Exactitude
|
Above: Senator Hiram Bingham with Amelia Earhart at
age 31
|
Above: Amelia Earhart in 1937, age 39
|
|
Above:
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in a mid-1970s photo portrait taken at her private development, 'Leisure World' home located in Rossmoor,
New Jersey.
|
Above:
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam on August 8, 1965 in front of the Sea Spray Inn located in East Hampton of Long Island, New York.
Photo credit, Joseph A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.)
|
Below:
Two Samples Of Superimposed Photographic Exactitude Using The Above Four Photographs
|
Irene + Amelia superimposed
|
Irene + Amelia superimposed
|
About "Truth" "Truth is not a mystery -- its greatest secrets
are yours to know through simple honesty and surrender to what that honesty reveals." John de Ruiter
~~~
This 35MM photograph taken in 1965 by Joseph A. Gervais
displays the same "Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam" shown in the black and white photo portrait at the top of the page.
Mrs. Bolam openly described herself to have been a 'past good friend' of Amelia Earhart to Joseph A. Gervais when the two
met each other. She also commanded a recognized air of importance among the people she was acquainted with, to include high-ranking
military figures and well-known pilots from the 1930s, 'Golden Age of Aviation.' A comprehensive forensic analysis
concluded with absolute certainty that this particular Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam was identified nowhere as 'Irene'
or 'Craigmile' or 'Bolam' prior to the mid-1940s. The analysis also conveys the true origin of these names.
To learn about the other forensically determined realities of this Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, who from 1928 to 1937 had been
famously known as 'Amelia Earhart,' read the additional results here featuring the first credible in-depth evaluation
of her Twentieth Century existence.
~~~
"The forensic studies are very convincing.
She was not an ordinary housewife. She was influential, knew many well placed people and was
well traveled." John Bolam, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam's survived brother-in-law comments on the initial results
of the Irene-Amelia forensic analysis in an Associated Press article by Ron Staton. The 2002 article marked the first
national news item to announce the advent of Tod Swindell's forensic research and human comparison analysis in the new millennium.
[The full Associated Press article appears further down.]
|
|
A 2018 note from the orchestrator of the forensic
analysis and creator of this website, Tod Swindell.
|
I first launched Irene-Amelia.com in late 2007. It was initially meant to
serve as a rebuttal to a recently expressed viewpoint of the National Geographic Channel that had asked me to appear on an
Amelia Earhart special it aired the year before. The producers of the special tracked me down after learning from different
Amelia Earhart aficionados of a 'forensic comparison analysis' I controlled that shed a new light on Amelia's never resolved
"missing person" case. Upon locating me, they asked if I would allow them to include the analysis in its program,
having additionally learned that its preliminary results drew attention from the Associated Press a few years earlier. (See
the 2002 AP article further down.) To Hawaii, where much of its Amelia Earhart special was filmed, Nat Geo flew myself and covered
the cost to ship a dozen of the large panels that displayed the key results of the Irene-Amelia forensic analysis I had sponsored
and initiated in the mid-1990s, (after consulting with forensic experts who explained how to go about it) and then dedicated
much investigative research to the next ten years to enhance it. Disappointingly, though, Nat Geo elected not to address or
feature the panels after its producers reviewed the controversial information they displayed. So here, what Irene-Amelia.com
offers is what Nat Geo decided not to share with the public. Its final program did show a trifle of some forensic overlay
samples I had carried with me, but it was barely enough to whet the appetite of a true skeptic. I was also grilled on camera
for two hours, only to see my contribution trimmed down to a few minutes of air time. Nat Geo's inability to recognize
or believe what the forensic analysis accomplished is what inspired me to display it on the World Wide Web. So Irene-Amelia.com
was launched in 2007, and it has remained on-line ever since while being further added to as time passed. To date hundreds
of pages worth of pertinent data have been presented on Irene-Amelia.com that additionally fortified the realities it conveys,
to especially include the main forensic truth of a renamed Amelia Earhart continuing to live-on after World War Two
in the United States until her passing took place in 1982, with the general public remaining unaware of it. (Thanks to the
comparison analysis there is no doubt anymore such a thing did happen. That's not to say this was not already known. Former
USAF Captain, Joseph A. Gervais figured it out in the 1960s and never stopped averring it to his dying day in 2005, causing
endless consternation along the way.) At this point, I need to make it clear that I am not and never have been a 'conspiracy
theorist.' "Conspiracy" is a dark word used to describe an immoral group of unnamed individuals who work in concert
to keep their nefarious activities and the orchestrated result(s) they cause from becoming known beyond their inner circle. I do not believe there
ever was an active conspiracy embarked on to keep the true outcome of Amelia Earhart's so-called, "disappearance"
from being recognized by the public. Rather, I view it as something that became deeply buried during the conflagration of
World War Two, akin to so many other non mend-able actions, stratagems, hostilities and atrocities the war left behind. It
is my belief that it was commonly determined how the best attitude to adopt after World War Two ended was to move-on with
as little looking back at such war-time happenings as possible---with the obvious exception of the 'never again to occur' holocaust remaining queued
in the forefront of the world's memory banks. In essence, while countries that had been war-time enemies worked to mend their own
fences and to help mend each other's, they did their best to look beyond negative war occurrences not only in the spirit of
atonement, but for the imperative need of a better geopolitical future. This included the U.S. and Japan conjointly agreeing to always view the unnoticed by
the world public, anonymous post-war reemergence of the then still existing, all-be-her war-time obscured
Amelia Earhart with, "official silence." (Note the 1982 Bender & Altschul quote below this
writ.) Highlighting this post-war credo, in the fall of 1945, in response to a reporter's question on how he believed the
world was different after the war, President Harry S. Truman replied, "The only thing different is the history you don't
know." Think about that.
In the meantime, though a handful of important sounding
individuals continue to decry the obvious forensic analysis results, the forensic analysis itself has never been over-challenged
and it never will be, because it merely displays the truth about what became of Amelia Earhart after July 2, 1937.
Only unanswered questions remain, and they pertain to 'how' and 'why' Amelia Earhart ended up as she did after she went 'missing'
all those years ago--and then was prematurely declared, "dead in absentia" in January of 1939. To reiterate, I would like to emphasize
that the analysis only ascertained what became of Amelia Earhart after she went missing. It does not offer a certain
conclusion about what actually happened to her (and Fred Noonan) on July 2, 1937, nor does it offer a certain conclusion
pertaining to where Amelia was and what she was doing during the World War Two years.
My gut feeling is those questions
are now destined to be answered by concerned official U.S. historians in order to account for the truthful information
the overall analysis displays, plenty of which is observable on Irene-Amelia.com. In the meantime, somewhat myopic individuals,
or those not willing to take the time to review, understand, and accept this carefully researched and forensically developed
information, will more than likely remain in denial when it comes to what became of Amelia Earhart after she went missing
in 1937, until said 'how' and 'why' questions are authoritatively answered by high-level U.S. and Nippon offices. The analysis results begin after the
following quote--and the two images with their accompanying description. Thank you,
Tod Swindell
[A brief bio on Tod Swindell is viewable at the bottom
of this Home Page.]
~~~
The Bender & Altschul Quote:
"Numerous investigations foundered on official silence
in Tokyo and Washington, leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan an everlasting
mystery." 1982 quote from the voluminous
Marylin Bender, Selig Altschul 'Pan Am Airways anthology,' The Chosen Instrument ~~~
|
|
|
Above:
The Kailua, Hawaii set of the National Geographic Channel's Amelia Earhart 'mystery update' special. The photos here display
six of the twelve 'comprehensive forensic analysis' panels that drew a certain conclusion on Amelia's never officially
resolved 'missing person' case. This particular location was at the home of retired USAF Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, whose then recent
book, Amelia Earhart Survived featured portions of the analysis with permission granted by Tod Swindell and 1967 Earhart
flight duplicator, Ann Holtgren Pellegreno, who supplied some of the photo-data used in the analyisis. Within
the panels, the multiple individuals attributed to the same "Irene Craigmile Bolam" identity were clearly displayed,
(shown further down) as was the head-to-toe physical congruence and character traits congruence of the post-World War Two
'Irene Craigmile Bolam' and her former-self, Amelia Earhart. Needless to say, after observing the controversial realities
presented in the panels, the show's producers were clearly ill-prepared to contend with them. Even though they had asked to
feature them and paid for their shipping cost, after some deliberating they requested the panels be removed before filming
commenced. Hence, this website provides a thorough overview of the analysis results the panels displayed that Nat Geo elected
not to share with the public. Below: Nat Geo's 2006 produced, "Where's Amelia
Earhart?" special that featured researchers, Tod Swindell and Colonel Rollin Reineck in support of the long-maintained
Joseph A. Gervais assertion (Joseph A. Gervais' passing occurred the previous year) was eventually released on DVD. Beyond
Nat Geo downplaying the forensic analysis results as well as choosing not to display the most important elements of what it
achieved (that shored-up Joseph A. Gervais' long maintained Amelia became Irene assertion) its program merely rehashed
the same old stories about Amelia's disappearance without offering anything new or enlightening to its viewing audience.
~~~ Alethephobia: "Fear of Truth" When it comes to the Irene-Amelia truth, ever since the controversy
over Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam surfaced in the 1970s, historical dictum influences have deftly avoided it. Senators, Congressmen,
government supported institutions, news media moguls, even Amelia's extended family members have always optioned to quickly
dismiss it out of hand over seriously addressing it. This is mainly due to the 'official silence' devoted to the
topic of Amelia's disappearance from the governments' of the United States and Japan dating back to the World War
Two era. In the new millennium, however, thanks to the undeniable results of a comprehensive forensic research and comparison
analysis, the truth grew to be recognizable to what is now an obvious state, and understanding, accepting, and embracing any
truth once it becomes identifiable, especially if it's an important historical truth, is always best in the long run. Keeping relative discoveries from the past in perspective, in
the case of Charles Lindbergh's "Careu Kent" alias, he used that name for decades while leading a separate life
without the public knowing until it was verified in 2004, thirty-years after he died. ~~~ Below: As displayed in the analysis results, it turned
out there were three different Twentieth Century women who were historically attributed to the same "Irene Craigmile
Bolam" identity.
|
1 This Irene Craigmile gave birth to a son in 1934. She and Amelia Earhart had known each
other.
|
| Above middle: The original Irene Craigmile, 1930 |
Above on the left is the original Irene Craigmile's husband, Charles James
Craigmile, and on the right is the original Irene Craigmile's father, Richard Joseph O'Crowley.
|
| The original Irene Craigmile, 1932 |
|
2 Irene Craigmile's son identified this woman to have been his "mother" the
way she looked "around 1940" and in "the 1970s," although the forensic analysis made it clear she was
not his biological mother. To date, no one in the public realm knows who she really was, where she came from, or where she
ended up. There is only one known-of postulation offered by Tod Swindell that suggests how her life may have also been intertwined
with Amelia Earhart's in a family protected way. In 1984, a long ago friend of the original Irene Craigmile's family estimated
this particular 'Irene' who she referred to as "Irene Jr." was "born in 1924" and was 'raised' by the
original Irene's extended family in Newark, New Jersey. Amelia had been a good Zonta club friend of the original Irene Craigmile's
aunt dating back to 1928, when she first became famous.
|
| Irene Craigmile, early 1940s |
|
| Irene Craigmile Bolam, 1970s |
| The two above photos superimposed... |
|
| ...display the same person in younger and older forms |
|
3 The Irene Craigmile and Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam images in this column were identified
nowhere as "Irene" prior to the mid-1940s. In 1958 this Irene Craigmile wed Englishman, Guy Bolam, the head of Radio
Luxembourg. She became known as Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam from then on, or just, 'Irene Bolam.'
|
| Irene Craigmile, 1946 |
|
| Pre eight-years of aging & a few adjustments. |
Above: It wasn't so
hard to find Amelia again behind her Irene facade with a little photo-shop help. Tear-duct to tear-duct the eyes
above aligned perfectly with those of her former Amelia self; all facial lines and creases as well, and as you will continue
to see, necks, shoulders, heights, arm-lengths, hands, foot sizes, handwriting, etc., everything aligned perfectly. As Monsignor
Kelley described it about his late friend, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1987, who was identified nowehere as 'Irene'
prior to the mid-1940s, "After all she'd been through she didn't want to be Amelia Earhart anymore." Who are we to judge or blame her for eventually feeling that way, not knowing a thing about what she ended
up having to endure as World War Two raged on? Looking at the above images, we also recall the title of Shirley
Dobson Gilroy's 1985 book, Amelia: Pilot In Pearls.
|
| Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, 1965 |
| |
|
| Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, mid-1970s |
|
Anymore, The 'Known' Truth
There were three different Twentieth Century
women attributed to the same "Irene Craigmile Bolam" identity, and one of them, who was not identified that way
prior to the mid-1940s, most definitely was previously known as Amelia Earhart. This is the truth about what became of Amelia Earhart after July 2, 1937.
There is no other truth beyond invented ones individuals chose or still choose to embrace, and in some cases promote
to the public sans proof-worthy logic to support their differing ideas. No matter what continues to be offered to the contrary, Amelia's ongoing existence as "Irene"
after the World War Two era is now known to be what became of her after she was reported missing during the dawn of
the World War Two era--in an area that soon after became a hornets' nest region in the Pacific war theater. It is time to stop fearing this reality; to stop automatically
rejecting it. Doing so will enable it to rise to the surface so it can be acknowledged and accepted by the public, and further
dealt with in a responsible manner out of concern for, and in the interest of truthful historical posterity. It is time to get real about what became of Amelia Earhart
after she was reported missing in the summer of 1937. ~~~
|
|
|
Below: 1946 and 1965 images of the same person shown superimposed
in the middle. Although she had altered her famously recognizable image with some adjustments beyond what aging and style
changes normally do, the former Amelia Earhart is displayed here.
|
| Prior to some World War Two era adjustments... |
|
| Irene Craigmile in 1946, FKA "Earhart" |
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1965
|
...superimposed into...
|
...Amelia in 1937, her former
self.
|
In the mid-1940s, Amelia Earhart reappeared
in the United States seemingly from out of nowhere to further exist as 'Irene.' The forensic analysis results made it plain
to see the 'Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam' who Joseph A. Gervais met and photographed in 1965, dubbed in Tod Swindell's original
forensic comparison analysis as the "Gervais-Irene" was NOT the original Irene Craigmile, even though post World
War Two history proclaimed she was. This is true where the analysis clearly proved there was more than one Twentieth Century
woman who used the same 'Irene' identity, and the one above, who was known as 'Mrs. Irene Bolam' after 1958, was previously
known as 'Amelia Earhart.' Note: The forensic analysis merely displays the truth when
it comes to what became of Amelia Earhart. Although it has been consistently shouted down by pseudo Amelia
Earhart 'mystery solving theorists,' including some that managed to make a living by promoting non-truthful ideas to the
masses about Amelia Earhart, the analysis results proved impossible to over-challenge.
|
Major Joseph A. Gervais USAF (Ret.), February 5, 2000
|
February 5, 2000; top row left to right: Ronald Reuther,
Tod Swindell, Mr. & Mrs. John Bolam; bottom row, left to right: Ann Holtgren Pellegreno, Joe Klaas, Joseph A. Gervais
|
Above: Joseph
A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.), shown in 2000 accepting his achievement award for "Four decades of unparalleled, dedicated
research devoted to investigating the true cause and outcome of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's 1937 disappearance."
The event was held at Cesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada in front of a gathering of representatives from a variety of Aviation
connected backgrounds, to include past 99's President, Patricia Ward; 1967 successful Amelia Earhart 'World Flight' duplicator,
Ann Holtgren Pellegreno; Amelia Earhart Society President William Prymak; Executive Director of the Western Aerospace Museum,
Ronald Reuther; Overseer of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, Lou Foudray; Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam's survived in-laws,
Mr. and Mrs. John Bolam; Amelia Earhart Survived author, Colonel Rollin C. Reineck USAF (Ret.); Rear Admiral, Eugene
Tissot USN (Ret.) (whose father was a past chief mechanic for Amelia Earhart) motion picture producer/journalist Tod Swindell;
Joseph A. Gervais' wife and son, Thelma and Gerald Gervais, Amelia Earhart Lives author, Joe Klaas, and several other
distinguished individuals. At the 2000 ceremony, William Prymak spoke of Joseph A. Gervais
in the following manner: "Joseph A. Gervais is a World War Two flying hero who went on to become widely recognized as
the world's leading authority regarding the subject of Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance. A former aircraft accident investigator,
while looking into Amelia Earhart's failed world flight attempt his encounter with Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam and follow-up
evaluation of her life history caused an enormous shift to his angle of research."
~~~
~~~
[Irene-Amelia.com previews the forensic analysis, documentary,
and MSS Protecting
Earhart. [Protecting Earhart U.S. Copyright Office
Registration Numbers: TXu 1-915-926; TXu 2-061-539] ~~~
|
| Amelia under the nose of her Lockheed Electra 10E, 1937 |
|
|
| Amelia Earhart, 1937 |
|
|
| ...superimposed into... |
|
|
| ...the person she became, the Gervais-Irene Bolam in 1965 |
|
The History of Protecting Earhart's
Irene-Amelia.com,
and More... 2018 marks eleven years of Irene-Amelia.com presenting Amelia Earhart truths over the internet This website features
a broad-based preview of Protecting Earhart's landmark discoveries on the obfuscated fate of Amelia Earhart. Launched
in 2007 to better enlighten the curious, it exists today as the most truthful, historically revealing, and overall important
Amelia Earhart website on the internet. ~~~
|
| Fred Noonan & Amelia Earhart, 1937 |
|
|
| Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E landing in Paramaribo during her 1937 world flight. |
|
~~~
About Truth... "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is
violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self evident." Arthur Schopenhauer ~~~
Eight decades ago, Amelia Earhart and
Fred Noonan were said to have 'disappeared' while flying around the world. This website details the most controversial
information about their last flight, including the results of a long-term forensic analysis of its unplanned outcome. On
any official level, the subject of the post-loss reality of Amelia's world flight ending has always been greeted by deflections
from sanctioned U.S. historians, or outright avoided entirely. This left the door open for all kinds of ideas presented over
the years, some of them outlandish, that attempted to explain what happened to the two fliers. In the mid-1990s, research
and development specialist, Tod Swindell embarked on a twenty-year journey to return a more serious historical perspective
to age-old missing persons case of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. His efforts led to revisted some realizations about
Amelia's loss, that included the viewpoint President Franklin Roosevelt's White House administration maintained about it.
|
| Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. & FDR |
From the time the event of Amelia's loss took
place in July of 1937, there was never a detailed official explanation offered on what happened to her. Perhaps the closest
thing to it surfaced in a May 13, 1938 White House Dictaphone transcript discovered decades later, where one of President
Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted cabinet members, Henry P. Morgenthau Jr., responded to a query made by First Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt, by obliquely referencing a difficult situation Amelia endured toward the end of her flight in the following manner:
"What that woman, ...happened to her the last few minutes, I hope I've just got
to never make it public."
What did Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. mean by that?
On
the morning of July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan had missed their intended destination of Howland Island and
were in the process of exercising their 'Plan B' option of heading back to the civilized British Gilbert Islands that they
had flown over during the night. Heavy storm squalls had been reported to the east of the Gilberts chain, causing them to
steer around them to the north, leaving them dangerously close to Japan's guarded Marshall Islands while doing so. Later,
rumors emanated that Japan had engaged and fired on the duo, and it appears Henry Morgenthau's 1938 comment of 'what
happened to that woman (Earhart) her last few minutes' that he 'hoped he just would never have to make public'
was relative to it. It looked to be the case, that the White House had privately ascertained that Amelia and Fred had been
shot-down for their encroachment on Japan's Marshall Islands, and they had met their demise that way. Later, probably
by the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939 or maybe even before, U.S. intelligence either suspected or outright knew that
Japan had managed to rescue Earhart and Noonan after the duo ditched in the lower Marshall Islands, and it optioned to detain
them approximate to the same time the Sino-Japanese War began. Joseph Gervais postulated how Japan may have surreptitiously
liberated Fred Noonan, but chose to continue holding on to Amelia.
~~~
About a former title of this website: "The Obfuscated Reality Of Amelia Earhart's 1937 World Flight Outcome"
'obfuscate' verb, past tense; obfuscated
1.
Obscuring the meaning of something to make it more difficult to grasp. 2. An equation, event, or happening made obscure, unclear, or unintelligible,
at times by intention. ~~~
"With
the 1937 missing person case of Amelia Earhart and the wide variety of Twentieth Century attempts made to explain what happened
to her, instead of providing clarity to it all, the result was inadvertent media obfuscation." Protecting Earhart's Tod Swindell
Some Recent
'Repeat' Obfuscations...
On the 'tabloid-like' November
2017 "Amelia Earhart was eaten by giant crabs" Fox News story: Amelia Earhart's body wasn't devoured by giant crabs on Nikumaroro Island. This suggestion was discredited
years ago, when the overall 'Nikumaroro' theory was relied on to amass financial support to pay for misguided expeditions
to the place. People fell for it then, and began donating to the group that promoted the false claim. To be sure, it is inadvisable
to offer funding to the myopic purporters of this highly contrived, historical charade. On
the recent
November 2017 "Amelia Earhart was executed by Japan's military on Saipan" Newsweek story: Forensics
proved this as well to have been a falsely purported conveyance. Not to leave out, Japan disavowed ever harming Amelia Earhart
and the United States never accused it of such a thing. ~~~
On the Findings
of Protecting Earhart "One newly developed phenomenon, is how in recent years some Amelia Earhart cottage
industries, past Earhart authors and a few misguided enthusiasts out there have been coercing the public into viewing Protecting
Earhart's forensic analysis results as 'insignificant.' It's findings cannot be over-challenged, however, regarding previously
unknown aspects of Amelia Earhart's full-life story the analysis discovered, and then so plainly revealed." Protcting
Earhart's Tod Swindell, 2018
Protecting
Earhart's 1997 to 2017 forensic analysis solidly discovered and proved: There were three people
attributed to the same 'Irene Bolam' identity in the Twentieth Century, and one of them, who appeared nowhere as 'Irene' prior
to the mid-1940s, used to be known as 'Amelia Earhart.' She died in 1982.
Mandel/Wikipedia: "Irene Craigmile
Bolam (1 October 1904 – 7 July 1982) was a New York banker and resident of Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New
Jersey.[1][2] In 1970, a book which was soon widely discredited set forth an allegation she was Amelia Earhart. Bolam denied
the claim, took legal action against the publisher and the book was withdrawn."
Protecting Earhart: The above is not accurate. No birth certificate was ever found and the true year of the original Irene's birth was disputed.
For example, the 1920 census listed the original Irene as "age 14." As well, the Gervais-Irene
never denied herself to have formerly been known as Amelia Earhart, and there is no mention in the article
of there having been three different women who were identified as one in the same 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile
Bolam.' The one who appears in the photo above was the mid-1940s to 1982 publicly identified Irene Craigmile Bolam, AKA the
Gervais-Irene, FKA 'Earhart.' She became 'Irene Bolam' after she married Englishman, Guy Bolam
in 1958, who was described by his brother to have been 'MI-6.' The book, Amelia Earhart Lives
referred to Guy Bolam as "her alleged husband" and thus it was cited for 'damaging' Irene's
reputation. This was among the two main reasons her attorney filed the suit against Gervais & Klaas and its publisher,
McGraw-Hill. [The other was her home ownership in New Jersey, where the book conveyed it to have belonged to Floyd Odlum,
the husband of famous pilot Jackie Cochran, of which the proof no longer existed after the book came out.] The 'Irene' shown
above in the color photo appears nowhere in photographs identified as 'Irene' prior to the 1940s. Two other women interchangeably
do though; the 'original' Irene Craigmile, and the 'early 1940s identified' Irene Craigmile, AKA the Non Gervais-Irene. Note: The lawsuit between the Gervais-Irene and Gervais & Klaas was settled with a ten-dollar consideration
paid by both sides after the Gervais-Irene refused to submit her fingerprints as proof-positive of her identity. McGraw-Hill
was ordered to pay her a 'high five figures' sum for statements considered damaging to her reputation, not for implicating
her as the woman previously known as Amelia Earhart.
Mandel/Wikipedia:
CONTENTS:
*Amelia Earhart Lives
*References
*Notes
*Bibliography
*External
links
"Amelia Earhart Lives"
Mandel/Wikipedia: "In 1965, Major Joseph Gervais had a chance
encounter with Bolam, believing she was Earhart. Using Gervais' research, author Joe Klaas documented this assertion in his
book Amelia Earhart Lives (1970). Bolam denied being Earhart, filed a $1.5 million lawsuit and submitted a lengthy
affidavit refuting the claim. The book's publisher McGraw-Hill pulled Klaas' book from the market shortly after it was released
and court records indicate they made an out of court settlement with her."
Protecting Earhart: It was not a "chance encounter."
In 1965 Amelia Earhart's long time close friend, famous pilot Viola Gentry invited Major Gervais and
paid for his entire family to fly across the country to New York so he could lecture about his investigation
results concerning Amelia's 1937 disappearance to a club of well
known retired pilots called, "The Early Birds of Aviation." After Viola pointed out an important looking couple to him, she introduced
Major Gervais to the couple, identifying them as Irene Bolam and her husband, Guy. Gervais saw how Mrs. Bolam was wearing
what looked to be a Distinguished Flying Cross indicator pin and an Oak Leaf Cluster signifying Air Force Major status. He
knew both items were decorations awarded in the past to Amelia Earhart. He also felt he recognized who Mrs. Irene Bolam used
to be right away. The article offers no mention of how the 'lawsuit' dragged on
for five years, and avoids describing how it was finally settled with a ten dollar consideration paid by Gervais and Klaas
to Irene, and by Irene to Gervais and Klaas after she refused Joe Gervais' request to submit her fingerprints. By Mrs. Bolam
turning down Gervais' request for her fingerprints, she forfeited her right to what 'potentially' could have been a final
settlement awarded her upwards of a million dollars [estimate] to be paid by Gervais and Klaas over time. Nowhere in the
'affidavit' does the Gervais-Irene actually deny herself to have been the woman previously known as Amelia Earhart, either.
It is true however, for publishing the book without enlisting her cooperation and for the libelous remarks damaging to her
reputation, McGraw-Hill was ordered to pay the Gervais-Irene $60,000.
Mandel/Wikipedia: "Bolam's personal life history has since been thoroughly documented, eliminating
any possibility she was Earhart."
Protecting
Earhart: This is untrue. To the extent Irene's life could be documented, no less than three different human beings appeared
as one in the same 'Irene' in the linear recorded history of her life from the arly 1900s to 1982. So much is clearly ascertainable
via the life-long photographic record of Irene Madeline O'Crowley Craigmile Heller Bolam. As well, no one ever "eliminated
the possibility" of the woman in the color photograph above having previously been known as 'Amelia
Earhart.' The opposite actually happened; Protecting Earhart's forensic analysis clearly displayed how she was previously
known as Amelia Earhart.
Mandel/Wikipedia:
"Evidence presented in the affidavit included her 1937 private pilot's licence [sic] and marriage certificate. Her
personal life was also a matter of public record. Born Irene Madalaine O'Crowley, she married Charles Craigmile and on his
death, married Alvin Heller but was subsequently divorced from Heller c. 1939. She remarried to Guy Bolam in 1959. Although
Irene Craigmile Bolam was a pilot, her main career revolved around banking and finance in New York. Brother-in-law John Bolam
said, ""She was influential, knew many well-placed people and was well-traveled."" Many mutual friends
such as racer Elinor Smith also knew both Earhart and Bolam."
Protecting Earhart:
1.) Again here, Alex Mandel's false claims are highly misleading. The Gervais-Irene
rekindled and further maintained some of her old friendships from her days as Amelia. Note:
The public had never heard of a pilot named 'Irene Craigmile' before 1970, when the Gervais-Irene was
first implicated to have been the former Amelia Earhart. As her later life close friend and confessor, Monsignor Kelley described it, she [Amelia] did not wish to be a public person anymore. So much
is the reason she opted for a new identity during the years she was missing. She never volunteered,
nor did she expect she would ever be recognized, until she was recognized by retired Air Force Major, Joe Gervais in 1965.
Among "many mutual friends" to quote Alex Mandel, famous pilots Viola Gentry and Fay Gillis Wells knew both Amelia
and her later-life Gervais-Irene self, as did Amelia's sister, Muriel know her as Amelia
and later as Irene. Attorney Irene Rutherford O'Crowley, the original Irene Craigmile's aunt
knew her by both names as well. These individuals and select others remained in league in keeping it non-public knowledge.
2.) The 'original' Irene's 1937 renewed pilot's license was dated May
31, 1937 [the day before Amelia left from Miami on her epic world flight.] Protecting Earhart previously obtained
a copy of it from Joe Gervais. It was never signed by anyone, let alone the original Irene Craigmile, as she had only flown
as a licensed pilot for a very brief time in mid-1933. As noted, the original Irene had a child in early 1934 and never flew
again. According to Rollin Reineck who researched the flying history of the original Irene Craigmile, as a licensed pilot
she had a total of barely 'twenty' solo flight hours documented by mid-1933, until she realized she was 'with child.' 1937's
license was the last pilot's license issued to her, and its only renwal since it was first awarded to the original Irene in 1933.
3.) Aspects
of everyone's personal life end up as "a matter of public record." Since the original Irene was a 'real' person,
of course there exists proof of it, to most specifically include her 1934 born son, Larry Heller, who in 2006 & 2014 identified
an entirely different person than the Gervais-Irene to have been his mother. .
4.) The 'original' Irene's middle name of "Madeline" was found on record in three different ways; as Madeline,
Madalaine, and Madaline. Yet "Madeline" is the O'Crowley family history spelling. [Note 'Edna Madeline O'Crowley,'
one of the original Irene's paternal aunts.] Notice the above clumsy language as well: "She married Charles Craigmile
and on his death, married Alvin Heller but was subsequently divorced from Heller c. 1939." Here's what actually happened:
Charles Craigmile, the 'original' Irene's first husband since 1927 who was fifteen years her senior, died suddenly of an
appendicitis attack in 1931. A year later in 1932, the 'original' Irene's friends, famous pilots Viola Gentry and Amelia
Earhart introduced her to flying airplanes by arranging lessons for her on Long Island, NY. In mid-1933, just after she
received her pilot's license the 'original' Irene became pregnant out of wedlock via her flight instructor Al Heller, and
the two eloped and were married in August of 1933. In early March of 1934 their son, Clarence 'Larry' Heller was born in Newark,
NJ. By 1937 it was clear the shotgun marriage of Al and Irene Heller was already faltering, and according to their annulment
file, Al Heller left the original Irene and their son, Larry after becoming fed-up with the original Irene's drinking and
promiscuous behaviour. Al relocated to Buffalo to work at the Curtis Wright factory there; an ugly child custody and visitation
rights battle over little Larry Heller enused thereafter and lasted the next three years. Note:
In 1994 a 1970s and 1980s friend of the Gervais-Irene, Diana Dawes mentioned in a taped statement how
she understood someone had "died" and that's how she [the former Amelia] was able to get her new name. In 1940
the legal 'annulment' [as opposed to a divorce] of Al and the original Irene's marriage was finalized, primarily based on
the fact that Al Heller had already been married before and had never legally divorced from his previous wife, thus returning
the name of "Irene Craigmile" to be legally available for the former Amelia Earhart's use.
It appears to have been sometime in the early 1940s when the original Irene's death most likely occurred, a few years after
her famous friend, Amelia was described to have "disappeared without a trace" in 1937. After Amelia's return to
the U.S. in the mid-1940s as 'the new' Irene Craigmile, AKA the Gervais-Irene,
FKA 'Earhart,' she became a Vice President at the People's National Bank in Rockville Centre, Long Island, and soon after
that she was given the same position in Great Neck on Long Island, NY beginning in the mid-1940s. As Amelia she had loved
Great Neck, having lived there with her friend Marion Stabler in late 1924 to early 1925. Amelia and her sister Muriel called
it 'their favorite Long Island beach haunt.' The Gervais-Irene left the banking trade after she married Englishman, Guy Bolam
on July 25, 1958 [opposed to "1959."] She had again become an active and recognized Zonta member, hob-nobbed with
her sister Muriel and other past flying friends at Zonta and Wings Club Functions, and in the 1960s
and 1970s she became a recognized corporate influence for Radio Luxembourg, even serving as its President after Guy died
in 1970. In the 1960s she and Guy often traveled internationally together, and they owned a cabin cruiser boat called 'The
Harpoon III' she used to race up and down the Long Island Sound, herself most always at the helm. When she married Guy on
July 25, 1958 [some referred to it as a marriage of convenience for both, although they did appear as endeared to each other]
the date marked one day after what would have been her 61st birthday as AE.
5.) The Gervais-Irene's survived brother-in-law, John Bolam's 2002 Associated Press quote is completely transcibed
this way: "We were inclined to think Irene probably was not Amelia. However, the forensic studies are very convincing.
She was not an ordinary housewife as she claimed. She was influential, knew many well placed people, and was well traveled."
Mandel/Wikipedia: "In 2006, Criminal forensic expert
Kevin Richlin was hired by National Geographic to study photographs of Earhart and Bolam and cited many measurable facial
differences between them, concluding that the two people were not the same. [citation needed]"
Protecting Earhart: This is not true. Forensic detective Kevin
Richlin never 'forensically concluded' the two were not one in the same. Richlin did mention the producers
of the show did not supply him with enough adequate photo data and/or other forensic data to conduct a thorough analysis. He treated the small amount of data they gave him as if he thought it was some
kind of joke. Note: Thus marks the end of the brief and
misleading Wikipedia biography page on Irene Craigmile Bolam.
Some notes and a Bibliography appear on the page. Although articles
and books are cited, they were shaped to favor Alex Mandel's anti 'Earhart survived and became Irene' campaign.
External links
*Earhart comparison to Bolam (TIGHAR's 2004 unsuccessful debunk attempt)
*Bolam as Earhart theory (Mandel rejection essay no longer linked)
*Bolam Theory with Lawsuit Details (Associated Press, 2002)
*Where is Amelia Earhart? Three Theories (National Geographic,
2003)
personal data
NAME Bolam, Irene Craigmile
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Banker,
homemaker
DATE OF BIRTH
October 1 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH
Newark, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH 7 July 1982
PLACE OF DEATH Bedford, New Jersey
End Wikipedia Page
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Protecting Earhart: The "external link" above
labeled "Earhart Comparison to Bolam" is TIGHAR's [Richard Gillespie] whose theory claimed Earhart and Noonan perished
on the desert Island of Nikumororo hundreds of miles south of their destination of Howland Island. TIGHAR has received well
over a million dollars of private contributions since the 1980s, based on Ric Gillespie's assurance that he expected to find
Amelia Earhart's plane near Nikumaroro. After several failed expeditions, most chalked his ideas up to little more than a
'Gilligans Island' type of castaways story. TIGHAR never found anything on the island described as 'credible.' On the TIGHAR
website, Mr. Gillespie built the page shown on the above link to campaign against the resurfaced Amelia became Irene truth.
Any favoritism shown by the public to any other theory than TIGHAR's has always been met by Mr. Gillespie head on. Note further
down, after Dr. Walter Birkby's 2003 comments expressed favoritism towards the work of Protecting Earhart, Mr. Gillespie
flew himself to Dallas, Texas to confront Dr. Birkby one on one. Dr. Birkby initially stated how based on his preliminary
review, he found it "hard to disagree" with the claim of there having been more than one Irene Craigmile Bolam
who shared the same identity, and with the possibility of one of them having been the 'former' Amelia Earhart. Ric Gillespie
noticed this of course, and twisted the Dr. Birkby's words to serve his own platitudes.
Alex
Mandel, the most ardent of the anti Irene-Amelia campaigners, dominates the Irene Craigmile Bolam contribution pages for Wikipedia.
Across the top of the Wikipedia page one will notice the tabs "Article," "Discussion," "Edit This
Page," and "History." Especially in the "Discussion" and "History" links, both Mandel
and Wikipedia's moderator, Gwen Gale obsess over it, with Mandel going to extremes to try and plead his case of there having
been nothing controversial about the life of Irene Craigmile Bolam, or Amelia Earhart's. Take a look at his following misinformation
comments regarding Protecting Earhart's research contributions to the Irene-Amelia topic:
Posted
by Dr. Alex Mandel of the Ukraine:
"After reading
the AP article (from "Atchison Globe online"), I found that it includes some factually incorrect
statements, that provides potential misinforming effects - "crediting" the fantastic anti-factual theory with
undue weight. The statement about the photographic overlays with ""pilot’s face and
hands, matching perfectly with those of Bolam"" is of unclear origin."
Protecting Earhart:
This is untrue. All portions; hands & face, heights, arm lengths, foot size, etc. all appeared in the book and video
that were shown and placed on display at the Oakland Aerospace Amelia Earhart Research Symposium attended by three hundred
people, covered by the Associated Press and CNN. Alex Mandel did not attend. [See journalist Rosalea Barker's Scoop
Stateside, "The People Versus the Executive Office" article about it.] So much was
also described in Rollin Reineck's 2003 published book, Amelia Earhart Survived.
Mandel continues:
"In a very best case it quotes and represents the personal opinions of a few overenthusiastic believers in his theory."
Protecting Earhart: Notice the words "few" and "overenthusiastic" as opposed to
"numerous" and "serious." As well, it was never anyone else's
"theory" beyond the initial assertion originated by Major Joe Gervais, later decribed as his 'theory.' After he met and photographed the Gervais-Irene in 1965 at a gathering of
famous retired pilots, Joe Gervais stated with 'certainty' he recognized her for who she used to be, and after diligently
researching her background for the next five years, he determined she had to have been no other person than the living, former
Amelia Earhart. Nobody was ever able to prove him incorrect, and he died in 2005 still adhering to bis belief. As
it turned out, he was correct.
Mandel: "The differences between Earhart and Bolam - both in bodial
and facial aspects - are numerous and quite obvious, some of them striking; and it was always noted by numerous observers
and researchers, both during the presentations of the theory and in all other cases when and where some discussion about
this topic ever happened."
Protecting Earhart: This is plain and simple BS, profligately
issued by a person wielding a false-truth campaign. [Is 'bodial' a word?]
Mandel: "The important and
principal fact is that there was no [sic] any positive forensic confirmation for the theory ever provided to the public
and scientific community for any professional check and proper verification."
Protecting
Earhart: Forensic Anthropologists Dr. Birkby and Dr. Fenton did agree to separate the two different Irenes and
to throughly conduct a full body analysis of Irene-Amelia as compared to Amelia, but after Dr. Birkby was confronted by Rich
Gillespie of the Tighar organization and phoned by Bill Prymak of the AES, he became discouraged commenting "I don't
go for this kind of thing," causing both he and his partner to do a limited null hypothesis of the post war augmented
'Irene-Amelia's' face (similar to Richlins) when compared to Amelia's from the 1930s.
Mandel: "Moreover,
two 'forensic pathologists' mentioned in the article - Dr. Walter Birkby (Arizona) and Dr. Todd Fenton (Michigan) - actually
issued a negative verdict about the credibility of the theory, refusing to support it;"
Protecting
Earhart: This is not true. And again they were 'Anthropologists' as opposed to "Pathologists," two very different
fields. Any so called 'negation' of theirs was based on the lack of Irene's past medical records being made available, that
would account for the deviated septum rhinoplasty the survived AE clearly
endured. Not to mention the cosmetic dentistry that reduced the gap between the former Amelia's two front teeth. These were
relatively easy alterations to explain and account for, but the missing documentation of proof left them unable to positively
confirm it academically.
Mandel: "...and in May 2005 Colonel Rollin Reineck - the author of the book supporting
this theory published in 2002..."
Protecting Earhart: Reineck's book Amelia Earhart
Survived was published in December 2003 and was not in stores until 2004.
Mandel: "...informed
about this the "community" of Earhart researchers (although not without understandable regrets)."
Protecting Earhart: Again, this is plain and simple BS. Solid proof exists where Rollin Reineck can
be seen in National Geographic's 2006 filmed 'Unsolved History' Amelia Earhart TV special, where Reineck
states "Earhart survived, there's no doubt about it." Colonel Reineck continued to support
and share his knowledge of the forensic truth about the Irene-Amelia conveyance and the accuracy of
the forensic study until he passed away in September of 2007.
Mandel:
"Then, as the article mentions, in 2006 Criminal forensic expert Kevin Richland was hired by National Geographic to
study photographs of Earhart and Bolam and cited many measurable facial differences between them."
Protecting
Earhart: Spelled "Richlin," there weren't "many" differences he pointed out, there were only a few,
and they were the same 'medically explainable' ones Dr.'s Birkby and Fenton alluded to upon observation. (Not to leave out
how the effects of aging itself vary in all individuals; noses and ears will continue to grow, noses sag, facial fat from
the upper nose bridge will move southward, as generally does all facial fat causing facial 'sagging.' Detective Richlin,
not a medical expert, never touched on these things, nor on dental work or rhinoplasty possibilities.)
No doubt National Geographic engaged Kevin Richlin, (with encouragement from the Amelia Earhart Society's long time founding
President, Bill Prymak who worked with National Geographic on the special Mr. Richlin appeared in) to serve as a back pocket,
non-historically informed 'ringer.' Dr. Birkby on the other hand, cited what he called 'a possible non-accounted for
past trauma' that could have occurred at some point to cause the nose difference he observed, to include the possibility
of a past deviated septum rhinoplasty procedure having been performed to account for
it.]
Mandel: "It seems for me that all the above mentioned leaves the referred article without the
degree of seriousness, factual accuracy and credibility required for the "source" referred in encyclopedic article.
Not intended to insist on anything.. but, because of presented reasons, for me it would seem more reasonable to remove this
link... Kind Regards - Alex Mandel"
Protecting Earhart: Above marks the haphazard summation
of Dr. Alex Mandel by way of his distribution of misinformation. This is one sample of campaigns that
influence Wikipedia controllers, but ultimately entire internet viewers perception
as well.]
Granted,
Amelia Earhart as prefame years 'unwed mother' would stand to surprise almost anyone who ever heard of Amelia Earhart before,
even though my hypothesis about it was first published a dozen years ago. Tod Swindell :
|
|
|
Note: In the final chapter of Rollin
Reineck's book, Amelia Earhart Survived, a supplement he published three years after his book's first edition was issued,
the colonel duly credited Tod Swindell's investigative research and comparison study in the above manner. He also acknowledged
Tod's 2002 screen story treatment, Amelia's Blessings as the first IP to edify the long-ago rumor of Amelia Earhart's
1924 out of wedlock born, 'family secret' little girl. So much drifted the so called "mystery" of Amelia Earhart's
disappearance toward an entirely different area, one never publicly addressed before let alone considered to have possibly
been connected to it.
|
Again,
it's JUST A HYPOTHESIS, but here it is just the same, with photos and as simple an explanation as I can muster at this point.
Tod Swindell :
 Above is Amelia
Earhart's sister, Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Grace McGuire together in Hawaii in 1985, commemorating the 50th anniversary
of Amelia's Hawaii to Oakland flight. Grace McGuire was born in Scotland in the early 1950s and raised by adoptive parents
until she moved to the United States while in her early teens. People often remark about Grace McGuire's strong resemblance to Amelia.
This is no coincidence in my book, just as Irene Craigmile's sudden post-World War Two resemblance to Amelia Earhart
was no coincidence in my book either. In 2017, Grace McGuire did mention to me how she was aware of herself being
closely related to Amelia Earhart, but she did not know in what way. Grace has also long been friends with the 1934
born son of the original Irene Craigmile, Larry Heller. Up until the early 2000s, Grace, a pilot herself, had a plan to fly
around the world with Larry Heller (also a pilot) serving as her navigator in Grace's own restored Lockheed Electra. Tod
Swindell
Below, for the heck of it, where my long term study revealed some
curious past relationships, and no less than two human beings who needed some important clarification pertaining to where
they actually came from, humor me for a sec: Just suppose Amelia had a daughter out of wedlock in 1924, a little girl, whose
rearing was privately tended to under the newly relocated Amelia's omniscient guise with her mother and sister, until after she suddenly
became famous in 1928, at which time her daughter was sent to live with and for the most part, be further raised
by the O'Crowley family of Newark, New Jersey, still under Amelia's omniscient guise. So much would have been carefully arranged
by Amelia and her Zonta friend, the original Irene Craigmile's attorney-aunt who would have necessarily endorsed it with strict
confidentiality assured. Understanding that Amelia came to know the original Irene Craigmile after meeting her through her
aunt, and how one never sees Irene Craigmile or her family mentioned anywhere in any of Amelia's biographies, lends one to
easier consider the past concealment of Amelia ultimately becoming Irene in the interest of a further private life that ostensibly
would have included her own progeny, that nary a soul knew she ever had. So out on a limb, I offer the following equation
within my taking a stab to sort out the confusion my study noticed that concerned MULTIPLE Irene Craigmiles, and two human
beings whose ancestral heritage appeared to be pretty vague. (Don't hit me.) Tod Swindell
|
Amelia, born in 1897
|
Amelia's daughter, born in 1924
|
Amelia's sister, born in 1899 / Amelia's granddaughter,
born in 1951
|
|
Lloyd Royer
|
Sam Chapman
|
A couple of things to keep in mind: Before Amelia married Goerge
Putnam when she was thirty three, she had two California beaus who proposed to her before she left California in 1924; Sam
Chapman, a former boarder at her family home there, who most recall as Amelia's 'lost love' before she married Putnam, and
a plane mechanic-engineer by the name of Lloyd Royer. One hardly hears of Lloyd, but he was a friend Amelia knew well ever
since she started flying in the early 1920s. Amelia and Lloyd actually went into business together for while, a business Lloyd
was left holding the bag having to run himself after Amelia left L.A. Of his proposal to her, Lloyd later recalled how, "Amelia
wasn't interested in marriage." Sam Chapman did not give up hope and Amelia did become 'engaged' to him, although no
hard plans for their marriage ever materialized, and she formally broke off their engagement after she became famous. According
to Lloyd, Amelia never intended to marry Sam Chapman but she and her family had viewed him as 'a good gentleman suitor.'
Interestingly enough as well, where Amelia's communications with Sam fizzled out, she always remained in touch with Lloyd
Royer, even after she became famous, and in time the two were reunited as friends after Amelia permanently moved back to L.A.
in 1935. Lloyd even worked on Amelia's Lockheed Electra in Burbank, helping to get it ready for her 1937 world flight. Lloyd
granted interviews in his later years with Joseph A. Gervais and Randall Brink, and mentioned to Gervais how his later-life
'friend,' Irene Craigmile Bolam, gifted him a copy of the book, Amelia Earhart Lives. In my screen story, "Amelia's
Blessings" I pegged Lloyd Royer as the would be father of Amelia's 1924 born 'family secret' little girl. [Post
script: Lloyd Royer was a Canadian from Banff, Alberta. In 1924, the first place Amelia and her mother headed for when they
left California that April was Banff, Canada. They also did not arrive in Boston, their final destination, until late August.]
Again, though, it's all JUST
A HYPOTHESIS. The point of it is to try and determine the true identity of the woman who served as a surrogate mother for
the original Irene Craigmile's 1934 born son, Larry Heller. Evidently, to date, no one has been able to sufficiently answer
this question. Yet it is absolutely certain the former Amelia Earhart definitely did know who she really was. After
all, the picture of her in the middle below came from her private collection, and it had never been published anywhere before
I did published it on Irene-Amelia.com.
|
Mother
|
Daughter
|
Father
|
|
Tod Swindell Amelia Earhart
'Aficionado Extraordinaire'
|
Different
stories about Irene Craigmile and her past acquaintance, Amelia Earhart
have been tossed around for decades. As mentioned the first 'public' one surfaced in 1970 as
a controversial news item--until Irene Craigmile herself, and most importantly a friend hers--who happened to be Amelia's
sister, Muriel Earhart Morrissey--convinced people that any past connection she had to Amelia Earhart was of no significance.
Muriel, who in her later life years did know her sister as 'Irene Craigmile,'
was also quoted to say there was, "practically no physical resemblance" that existed between her friend, Irene and
her 1937 'gone-missing' sister, Amelia. Yet as anyone can see, the decades later Irene-Amelia comparison study directly contradicted
Muriel's words. After the hubbub of it all died down, as the years passed
a tonnage of misinformation disseminated into the public mindset that shored up Irene's and Muriel's commonly expressed viewpoint.
Today, even Wikipedia's Irene Craigmile Bolam page (her surname of 'Bolam' was added by a 1958 marriage) is misleading where
it leaves people considering that the decades-old controversy over Irene Craigmile's true past was 'settled' in recent years
by a detective the National Geographic Society hired; something the National Geographic
Society denies. It is best to
consider what my study presents about Irene Craigmile as if you're seeing, reading, and learning about her for the first
time, for much of it was not publicly known information until recent years. My overall research presents the most updated,
comprehensive, not to leave out 'accurate' version of Irene Craigmile's life story. REMEMBER, it is TRUE that Irene Craigmile
was a real person who was acquainted with Amelia Earhart in the 1930s. Her life was a struggle at times compared to
Amelia's, though, and she LOOKED NOTHING LIKE Amelia. Therefore, it defies logic where a woman sporting the exact same 'Irene
Craigmile' identity, who appeared from out of nowhere in the United Sates after World War Two ensconced with a lofty career
in the New York banking industry, would several decades later end up proving herself, by virtue of the forensic analysis I
orchestrated, to have been a head-to-toe physical and character traits carbon copy... of Amelia Earhart. As a reminder,
highlighted in blue a little further down is a condensed version of the original Irene Craigmile's life story. After
you read it, think once again about the past connection she had with Amelia Earhart's life. Rest assured, it was a bit different
than what Amelia's sister, Muriel, and Irene Craigmile herself necessarily conveyed to people from the early 1970s
on. Irene's death was recorded in 1982. Muriel died in 1998. Thank you, TS
|
|
Irene 1965 above, 1963 below
|
Amelia above and below
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
Above are two of the first comparisons I did back in 1997. Joseph
A. Gervais and his wife, Thelma were quite affected by them as they had never before witnessed the superimposed photos technique
applied to Joe's 1970 Irene-Amelia assertion. Note: Earhart author, David Bowman mistakenly credited an artist by the
name of Dave Deal, who read about my work in 2004 and decided to do some comparisons of his own, as the originator of the
above two comparisons. He wasn't. The two examples above were my first comparisons and they basically kicked-off what became
my twenty year long Irene-Amelia journey. At this point, anyone who claims that Amelia did not live on
and change her name to Irene is either not informed enough to know the truth of it, or is outright not telling the truth.
Tod Swindell, 2019
|
Dr. Alex Mandel, a self-described "Amelia Earhart
fanatic" intentionally misleads the public about Irene Craigmile Bolam using Wikipedia as a platform to do so.
|
An Important Note: The
Wikipedia 'Irene Craigmile Bolam' page created and solely moderated by Dr. Alex Mandel of the Ukraine is purposefully misleading.
Juxtaposed to what it states, NO forensic expert was EVER hired by the National Geographic Society who conclusively nullified
the 'Amelia became Irene' postulation. In fact, NO forensic expert EVER conclusively nullified the public assertion originally
made by retired USAF Major Joseph A. Gervais in 1970, that stated Amelia Earhart managed to live on after she went missing
in 1937 and later surfaced in the United States known as 'Irene Craigmile.' Rather, forensic research conducted decades later
easily confirmed there was a high level of truthful importance to his assertion.
|
Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E in Paramaribo during her 1937
world flight.
From an unsettled public controversy
that began in 1970, by now it has grown to be clearly evident: The recently revealed, post World War Two look-alike anomaly
of Amelia Earhart and her 1930s pilot friend, Irene Craigmile, was no mere coincidence.
|
Above, Amelia Earhart
|
A rare, 1934 photo of Amelia Earhart's long ago pilot friend, Irene Craigmile, with her son.
|
Above: According to record, on the left is a
1970s photo of Amelia Earhart's long ago pilot friend, Irene Craigmile. On the right she is shown superimposed with a photograph
of Amelia. Even
though they looked nothing like each other when the two were friends in the 1930s, by the mid-1940s Irene Craigmile had somehow
become Amelia Earhart's virtual twin physically and character trait wise. With no given explanation for such an oddity, this
would mark a kind of human miracle that went unnoticed until the comparison study showed it to be true. But this
was no miracle. To
find out what extensive, updated research shows about Irene Craigmile, to include how her once prominent 'doctor and lawyer'
family members played an important part in Amelia Earhart's life story, keep going...
Though it may
be hard for some people to believe, it is now known: There were three different Twentieth Century women attributed to the
same 'Irene Craigmile' name and identity, and the third one, who appeared nowhere identified as 'Irene'
prior to the end of World War Two, had been previously known as, Amelia
Earhart. Here
below are the three different women who were attributed to the same Irene Craigmile identity:
|
Identified as the ORIGINAL Irene Craigmile in 1930 in an old newspaper
photo, shown with her husband and father.
|
The ORIGINAL Irene Craigmile with her son in 1934.
|
|
The SECOND Irene Craigmile, in the "early 1940s" positively
identified by her son. She was not the original Irene Craigmile but she did serve as a surrogate mother to the original Irene
Craigmile's 1934 born son. To date her true identity remains unknown.
|
The SECOND Irene Craigmile, 1970s, positively identified by her son.
This is the true older version of his younger years "mother" he identified on the left.
|
|
The THIRD Irene Craigmile, 1946 AKA 'the former Amelia Earhart.'
She appeared nowhere as Irene prior to the World War Two years. Sure her look is different after nine years of absence, aging
& some noticeable appearance adjustments, but Amelia is still in there. Here again, it isn't that hard to see-through
to her former self:
|
The THIRD Irene Craigmile, top photo in 1965, lower photo in 1977.
|
Forensic comparisons separated the 'Irenes' displayed above in the
"Forensically Comparing" section via superimposed photo enlargements of their eyes. The third Irene Craigmile matched
Amelia's eyes tear-duct
to tear-duct, the others did not.
~~~
Below: The four books displayed here, respectively published in 1970, 1985, 2004
and 2016 all attested that Amelia Earhart continued to live-on after she was declared 'missing' in 1937, and not long
after World War Two ended she reemerged in the United States known as 'Irene Craigmile.' The U.S. justice department, long
pegged as having been intrinsically involved with keeping Amelia's ongoing private survival as 'Irene' quiet under the original
guise of J. Edgar Hoover, has never commented on any of them.
|
|
"Special recognition goes
to Tod Swindell, who undertook an extensive, in-depth forensic analysis of the Gervais-Irene Craigmile Bolam and Amelia
Earhart to show the world they were one in the same person." USAF Colonel, Rollin C. Reineck,
reprinted from his book, Amelia Earhart Survived. Note: From 1970 to 2016, four nationally published books averred
that Amelia Earhart quietly lived-on after she went missing and in time became known as, "Irene." The two most recent
ones, to include Colonel Reineck's shown here, were published in the wake of the first ever, Irene-Amelia forensic comparison
analysis orchestrated by Tod Swindell, that wielded its incontrovertible results.
|
|
|
Tod Swindell
|
About Colonel Reineck's and
Rear Admiral Tissot's comments about my forensic research and Irene-Amelia comparison study:
|
"I so much appreciated
the way retired Rear Admiral Gene Tissot reacted to my study findings. And while I also appreciated Colonel Reineck giving
me credit for 'solving' the 'Earhart mystery,' I never claimed to have done that. What I did and do formally claim
is to have helped solve the old missing person case of Amelia Earhart with finality along with a handful of other individuals
that included both of these fine gentlemen. I did so by forensically proving there was more than one Twentieth Century woman
identified as the same Irene Craigmile, and by detailing how one of them, who appeared nowhere as 'Irene' prior to the World
War Two years, was the former Amelia Earhart re-identified as Irene Craigmile in no uncertain terms. In 1970, retired USAF Major Joseph A.
Gervais first publicly asserted his belief that Amelia Earhart survived her 1937 disappearance and changed her name to Irene
Craigmile. Yet it took another three decades for someone to not only come up with the idea of forensically comparing Irene
Craigmile to Amelia Earhart, but to learn from experts how to go about doing such a thing, then execute it and display its
results in a public format. That someone was me. Major Gervais and Colonel Reineck, who had both deeply studied the Irene-Amelia
anomaly before I came along in the late 1990s, averred I was the first person to do such a thing, and I've studied this subject
long enough by now to know this myself. Before
they died a decade ago, about a year and a half apart from each other, both Gervais and Reineck, without
the aid of any comparisons, had already concluded on their own and publicly stated without hesitation time and again over
the years, that Amelia Earhart lived to become known as 'Irene' the last half of her life. And... they were right. So as far as the so-called 'mystery
of Amelia Earhart's disappearance' goes, at least to myself anymore, that exists in the form of not knowing
for certain where Amelia actually was and what she was actually doing the eight years she was gone from 1937
to 1945, before she resurfaced as 'Irene Craigmile' in the United States. Some serious educated guesses do exist there and
they are presented in Irene-Amelia.com, but those two questions still remain to be accurately answered. Not to omit, it is
fairly certain the former Amelia Earhart took portions of the answers to those questions with her to the great beyond."
|
|
Amelia Earhart pictured next to U.S.
Senator Hiram Bingham
|
Irene Craigmile
|
Irene-Amelia
|
|
Irene Craigmile, 1965
|
Amelia, 1937
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
With
the forensic reality of it all now staring back at everyone in no uncertain terms, the time has come to finally acknowledge
the plain truth about Amelia Earhart.
|
First
Review Endlessly debated for decades by aviation historians over the years and often ridiculed
by the less informed, the Irene Craigmile-Amelia Earhart controversy remains officially unsettled to this day, even
notwithstanding all of the Twenty
First Century incontestable forensic advancements made toward it. As well, do not believe the misleading
Wikipedia diatribes that falsely state the half-century old debate over Irene Craigmile Bolam's life-long identity was settled
in recent years. It wasn't. Ever since the hard-to-fathom story about Irene Craigmile first made
headlines in the 1970s, people have been encouraged not to believe or pay attention to it by media dominating influences. In recent years, however, due to new and more in-depth research, additional information was learned
about the past intertwined lives of Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile's once prominent O'Crowley family of Newark,
New Jersey. The same new research also displayed how in no uncertain terms, somehow in her later life years, Irene Craigmile
ended up all-but miraculously looking just like her old friend, Amelia Earhart, who had gone missing prior to the
start of World War Two. This 'would have been' miracle came to exist, because Irene Craigmile did not look anything
like Amelia Earhart before the war. Once again... this was no miracle.
"Thanks to Protecting Earhart's recently completed forensic research analysis that was
underway by the beginning of the 21st Century, that included full reviews of the work of Joseph A. Gervais, Randall Brink,
Rollin Reineck, and several former constituents of the no longer extant Amelia Earhart Society of Researchers, there now exists
a comprehensible explanation for the plural Irenes anomaly. That is, one of them--most definitely--had been previously
known as, Amelia Earhart." Tod Swindell, 2019
|
Amelia
Earhart, 1932
Finding The Real, Original Irene Craigmile:
Above is a 1932 Akron, Ohio newspaper photo that features Amelia
Earhart and the original Irene Craigmile with other woman pilots. Amelia, wearing a white V-neck collar is seated on the auto
running board; Irene Craigmile, who was not yet a licensed pilot then, is listed in the second row, second in from right.
Further down (highlighted in blue) is a brief version of her life story.
|
'Irene Craigmile' is listed between charter 99's members,
Viola Gentry and Edith Foltz. Irene Craigmile only flew briefly and never joined the 99's, the international organization
for women pilots formed by Amelia Earhart and other women pilots in 1929. Amelia was the 99's first president.
|
After Amelia Earhart married George Putnam in 1931,
for a while she went by the name of 'Amelia Earhart Putnam,' just as she is listed here between her fellow 99's charter member,
Dorothea Leh and future 'National Air and Space Museum Wall of Honor' honoree, Abbie Dill (Haddaway).
|
Below is the
full page 'September 1, 1932' version. Amelia Earhart is outlined in white and the original Irene Craigmile is outlined in
black.
Above: A 1982 newspaper article identified this person
as Amelia's 1930s pilot friend, Irene Craigmile as she looked in 1932. Accordingly, the photo would have been taken a year
after her husband, Charles James Craigmile died from appendicitis. Tod Swindell's study questioned whether or not this photograph
represents the original Irene Craigmile's true image.
Take a look again at Irene Craigmile in 1934 with her son, Clarence "Larry"
Heller who was born in March of that year. As mentioned the original Irene Craigmile became pregnant out of
wedlock in 1933 and soon after married the child's father to be, her former flight instructor, Al Heller. Their marriage quickly
disintegrated though and it was subsequently annulled after Al Heller moved away in 1937, the same year Amelia Earhart went
missing. Their son, Larry Heller, identified a different person to have been his mother the Irene Craigmile who was previously
known as Amelia Earhart.
~~~
About "Truth" "Truth is not a mystery -- its greatest secrets
are yours to know through simple honesty and surrender to what that honesty reveals." John de Ruiter ~~~
The 21st Century
Amelia Earhart Reality Check... Even though most conventional thinking people do not want to believe it, because in a way it's
a pain in the neck to have to believe it, plus it's embarrassing to accept how the public was unknowingly conditioned NOT
to believe it for decades, (more-so in recent years, after some of the initial forensic study results were made public) here's
the truth anyway:
|
Irene-Amelia
|
The 'new,' post World War Two,
Irene Craigmile
|
Irene-Amelia
|
Some will continue to defy this new realization until
official history stops turning a blind eye to it, but above is a 1970s photo portrait of the
former Amelia Earhart identified as Irene Craigmile. Researcher, Tod Swindell's recently concluded Irene-Amelia
forensic study determined that during the World War Two era, the ONLY plausible explanation for the pluralistic human
anomaly realized about Irene Craigmile was that after Amelia Earhart went missing in 1937, she continued to live-on without
the public knowing about it, and was later able to assume the left-over identity of a 1930s pilot friend of hers, Irene Craigmile.
Here, the following statement is correct: The new Irene Craigmile
above was identified nowhere as 'Irene' before the end of World War Two. So accounting for her recently discovered
human congruence to Amelia Earhart and her acknowledgment of having been Amelia's long-ago friend, where it could
have at all been true that she was not formerly known as Amelia Earhart, such an inexplicable human equation would
evidence itself to have been nothing short of a miracle. Except, for the sake of repetition, it was not a miracle. In recent years it grew to
be clearly identifiable that Amelia Earhart managed to live-on after she went missing in 1937, and she later became known
as Irene Craigmile.
After her 1958 marriage to Englishman, Guy Bolam, she further became known as, 'Mrs. Irene
Craigmile Bolam.' While it is now clear that the person in the above photo was previously known as Amelia Earhart, once again
it is also clear this truth was something the world public was never supposed to know. The former Amelia
Earhart was taken by surprise in 1970 when she was publicly outed for who she used to be in a national headlines making way,
but she was essentially indomitable in her defiance against it for what hindsight reveals were her own good 'private
life' reasons and to be sure, some historically sound reasons as well. Curiously, no one considered doing a serious research analysis
of Irene Craigmile's full life story back then, nor was her physical being, nor were her character traits compared to Amelia
Earhart's at the time. Three decades would pass before Tod Swindell decided it was time to do both. After his lengthy study that
left no stones unturned, its forensic conclusion, that was fully copyrighted in 2017, correctly stated there was more than
one woman historically attributed to the same 'Irene Craigmile' identity, and the former Amelia Earhart, most assuredly after
the World War Two era in the United States, is easily identifiable as one of them within the completed study. To those raising an eyebrow here, this is not "hokum" as Amelia Earhart's niece, Amy Kleppner once
described it to be. Amy's mother, Amelia's sister, Muriel, who died in 1998, was actually a later-life friend of the new
Irene Craigmile and always honored the secrecy of their true sisterly past, even to her own daughter, Amy. Notwithstanding Amy Kleppner's long held desire for people to not pay attention to the Irene-Amelia story
respectful to her mother's wishes, anymore it exists as a recognizable forensic reality that her mother did know her sister
as 'Irene' in her later-life years. As well, notwithstanding
the Smithsonian's ongoing laissez faire attitude toward it and the many opposing Amelia Earhart mystery theorists
who continue to choose not to believe it, the new Irene Craigmile shown above was not just Amelia's later
life 'look-alike.' (Disbelievers tried to convey so much after the study results were first made public.) For after combining
the additional research findings to this aged controversy, again for the sake of repetition, it became clear she
actually was the former Amelia Earhart, and the tale of the tape now leaves us the wonderful gift of finally getting
to recognize the full biographical story of this incredible human being... who was basically known as 'Amelia' the
first half of her life, and then as 'Irene' the last half of her life. The former Amelia Earhart's death was recorded in
1982, just a few weeks shy of what would have been her 85th birthday. Of further note, to date the United States Department
of Justice has never commented on the half-century old debate over the dual identity assertion pertaining to, 'Irene
Craigmile.' Dating
back to the time Amelia went missing and into the World War Two era, suspicion always rang high toward what really happened
to her. Then after the war, it appeared the story of her loss grew to be accepted for what it was. That lasted until renewed suspicion
toward what actually happened to Amelia was greatly accelerated by some irrefutable, controversial information discovered
about it in the 1960s. Said information led many investigative researchers to commonly conclude that some kind of post World
War Two agreement made between the United States and Japan determined the ambiguously viewed outcome of Amelia Earhart's
ill-fated flight in 1937, was to always remain as it was, and since Amelia Earhart was legally declared 'dead in absentia'
in January of 1939, the person once recognized as Amelia Earhart would henceforth remain, legally dead. Evidently, Amelia herself favored
this final verdict rendered by both countries and there is little doubt she had her own good reasons for doing so. Although the individual governments of Japan and the United States have never commented on the suggested idea that
a kind of, 'status-quo end of war pact about Amelia Earhart' was to evermore exist, that the United Kingdom was privy
to and honored as well, consider these later discovered measures of anecdotal information:
"Numerous
investigations foundered on official silence in Tokyo and Washington,
leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan
an everlasting mystery." From Bender & Altschul's 1982 Pan Am Airways anthology,
The Chosen Instrument
|
|
Above: United Nations Ambassador to the Marshall Islands,
Alfred Capelle.
In 2002, United Nations Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Alfred Capelle
told Associated Press reporter, Ron Staton, "Amelia Earhart definitely came to the Marshall Islands in 1937." This
quote was featured in many newspapers around the country that ran Ron Staton's story. Ambassador Capelle further described
that he believed Amelia, "continued to live throughout the war years," and it appeared "plausible"
to him that she could have privately made it back to the United States. He added that his opinion was based on his country's
own history of the time period. Ambassador Capelle also professed how Japan's 1937 rescue of Amelia and her navigator, Fred
Noonan, and their continued existence in Japan's care was "common knowledge" in his country, but it was
left as, "non-public information" due to the strained relationship that had recently begun to exist between
Japan and the United States then. Here, recall how the Sino-Japanese War began on July 7, 1937, just five days after
Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan were first reported 'missing.' Two years later Germany invaded Poland and aligned
itself with Japan against the U.S. and China. Where Ambassador Capelle's and his countrymen's words always rang true, what
was actually happening with Amelia Earhart during that tumultuous time period is not commonly known history in the United
States. However the story of Amelia's ongoing survival under Japan's stewardship is the way it is still recalled in the Marshalls,
Saipan, and other nearby Pacific Islands. Where this information comes
as a surprise to anyone, beyond taking in the above 1982 Bender and Altschul quote from their landmark Pan Am Airways and
U.S. aviation history expose', consider what Admiral Chester Nimitz confided to CBS's
Fred Goerner in 1964, when he mentioned Amelia Earhart and her navigator, "went down in the Marshall Islands and were
picked up by Japan," and how the withheld knowledge of the occurrence was long-ago, "known and documented in Washington."
Also consider the words of retired
U.S. navy commander, John Pillsbury and his 1962 comment to Fred Goerner about his Amelia Earhart disappearance investigation,
where he encouraged Goerner not to give up because he was onto something that would, "stagger the imagination."
All of the above aside, it is important to recognize how it remains
unknown to this day when it comes to determining exactly where Amelia Earhart actually was and what she was actually
doing from the time she was reported missing in 1937, until she resurfaced in the U.S. after World War Two, with her new 'Irene
Craigmile' name and identity applied to her person.
|
The Now Obvious Conclusion Amelia Earhart's controversial disappearance in 1937 was
actually a missing person case that ended with Amelia being declared, 'dead in absentia' in January of 1939.
Anymore, however, the recognizable truth is Amelia Earhart did not actually die after she went missing. She continued
to live-on, she changed her name to 'Irene' during the World War Two era, and she resurfaced with an updated look in the United
States after the war and soon-after embarked on a new career in the banking industry. She did this in order to further live
privately, away from the public eye. This isn't a new revelation by any means. A retired military hero discovered this to be true in the mid-1960s, thirty-years
after Amelia went missing. People just never believed him, and perhaps that was best, especially where the former Amelia Earhart
was still very much alive at the time. In effect, however, the original Irene Craigmile's early-1940s demise was covered over to leave her name and identity
available for Amelia's use after the war years, and her son, who is pictured with his mother in the 1934 photo at the top
of this page, ended up being further raised by a surrogate mother figure who he came to recognize as his true mother. In the
end the forensic equation listed a total of three different women attributed to his mother's same identity; his biological
mother, his surrogate mother, and the former Amelia Earhart. This now easy-to-identify 'forensic reality' is displayed further
down. (continued below...)
~~~
Above: Irene on August 8, 1965, in East Hampton
of Long Island, New York. Photo credit: Joseph A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.)
(continued from above...) The former Amelia Earhart initially began her new,
post-war life in the city of Mineola of Long Island, New York. After a few years she moved to her old stomping grounds of
nearby Great Neck to serve as an assistant vice president at a bank there. [She had lived in Great Neck for several months
in 1924 & 1925 when she was known as Amelia, and of course she often flew out of the airfields on Long Island and started
the Ninety Nines there.] The former Amelia Earhart retired from banking in 1958 when she married Guy Bolam of England, a
successful executive with Radio Luxembourg in Europe. She became a constant world traveler after that. Absolutely, juxtaposed to the U.S. justice department's
enduring silence about Amelia Earhart's fate after she went missing, the press and general public have been influenced by
imposing forces over the years, and especially since the study results became known, NOT
to pay attention to the 'Amelia became Irene' conveyance. Said 'forces' have traditionally included
some of Amelia's extended family members and individuals associated with the Smithsonian Institution. Just the same it is
true that Amelia lived-on after she went missing, and in time changed her name to, 'Irene.' ~~~
|
Note:
Different versions of the Irene-Amelia story have been around for decades. It began as a national news item in 1970 before
misinformation led people to believe it was a hoax. Even Wikipedia's Irene Craigmile Bolam page still misleads where it suggests
the aged controversy over her true identity was finally 'settled' in 2006 by a forensic detective the National Geographic
Society hired. (Nat Geo itself denies this.) It is best to consider what is
presented here as if you're hearing and learning about the Irene-Amelia story for the first time. After all, much of it
wasn't publicly known until recent years and it stands as the most updated, comprehensive, not to leave out 'accurate' version
of it. Thank you.
|
|
~~~ 2019
This website and the forensic conclusion it presents are the copyrighted
intellectual properties of Amelia Earhart historian-journalist, Tod Swindell. [Protecting
Earhart MSS & Forensic Analysis by Tod Swindell, individual copyright registration #'s: TXu 1-915-926; 2014,
TXu 2-061-539; 2017] From 1996 on, Mr. Swindell endeavored
to thoroughly study the individual life stories of 1930s pilot friends, Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile. Beyond a certain
collection of knowledgeable individuals on the subject of his concern, other closely connected sources proved difficult for
him to willingly engage. No matter, the results of his long term 'forensic research' and 'human comparison study' are nothing
short of astounding. Some try to claim otherwise, but in doing so they exhibit a limited ability when it comes to recognizing
forensically learned truths. What Tod Swindell
managed to accomplish in a singlehanded way over the course of two decades--against the strong grain of conventional reality--is
as amazing as it is undeniably real. Even so, many have a hard time believing what they see here with their own eyes.
As Tod says: "That's ok, after all it reveals a startling, inconvenient historical reality for people to have to come
to terms with." ~~~
|
~~~
|
Tod Swindell in 2014
|
Introducing Tod Swindell, orchestrator of the first-ever, Irene Craigmile
Bolam to Amelia Earhart comparative forensic analysis.
|
| |
Hello. I'm supposed to briefly write here about my Irene-Amelia
research that spanned the past two decades. (Be it known it is difficult for me to briefly write about anything.) In 1996, I embarked on what
ended up becoming an indefatigable journey. It originally began when I set out to do a documentary about the late Mrs. Irene
Craigmile Bolam. I believed her long-ago relationship to Amelia Earhart was a forgotten, albeit 'highly interesting' story,
one that after making headlines in the early 1970s, seemed to almost magically go away. I completed my journey in 2017, after learning practically
everything about Amelia Earhart's life and career, her family and friends, and after learning practically everything about
Amelia's 'old pal,' the original Irene Craigmile, as well. I began researching the original Irene Craigmile's past by examining her brief, mid-1930s
stint as a licensed pilot. I then went to great lengths to research, glean, and gather information about her oft-troubled
life story that began with her birth in 1904, and reached its sad conclusion during the early years of World War Two. I even
twice interviewed the original Irene Craigmile's 1934 born and still living son, Larry Heller. The two of us signed an agreement
at his attorney's office in New York City some years ago, and I have his revealing statements about his mother on record.
They include his positive identification of an entirely different person to have been his mother than was the post World War
Two Irene Craigmile who matched Amelia Earhart, who used his mother's same identity. Of course, Larry Heller always denied that his mother was
Amelia Earhart, and this was true because Amelia did not give birth to him in 1934. Amelia was a very famous person back then
who was rarely away from the public eye. He did acknowledge that his mother had 'known' Amelia, but added that it was his
mother's paternal aunt, a New York attorney by the name of Irene Rutherford O'Crowley who was actually a closer friend of
Amelia's than his mother had been. When we met, Larry Heller was reticent when it came to openly discussing the idea of the
former Amelia Earhart having his mother's identity additionally attributed to her from the mid-1940s on, but as one can see
in the 1982 news article clipping below, he obviously did wonder about it. In my 'A Brief About The Original Irene Craigmile'
section highlighted in blue above, I elaborate a little more on this. Here
and now though, below the following news article clipping and photo of Larry Heller, again observe the three different Twentieth
Century women who were attributed to the same identity--that originally belonged to Larry Heller's biological mother, whose
true birth name was, Irene Madeline O'Crowley, before she married one 'Charles James Craigmile' in 1928. [Her middle name
was not spelled "Madelaine" or "Madalaine" as some have done.]
|
|
A few months after his mother's death was recorded
in 1982, the article lead-in (left) that was accompanied by the photo of Larry Heller, (right) described how he and his
wife, Joan, after thinking it wasn't true, were "no longer sure" about the former Amelia Earhart and Mr. Heller's
mother having been attributed to the same identity. Another article mentioned how after she died, Mr. Heller actually tried
to have his mother's body fingerprinted but was denied access to it. At his attorney's office some two decades later, Mr.
Heller identified an entirely different person to have been his mother in younger and older forms than the Irene Craigmile
Bolam who proved to be identical to Amelia Earhart, leaving the open-ended question, 'which Irene Craigmile Bolam actually
died in 1982?' Recall how the forensic comparison analysis concluded a total of three different women were attributed
to Mr. Heller's mother's identity: 1. His biological mother, who no longer appeared after the early 1940s; 2. His surrogate
mother, who first began to serve as a 'nanny figure' for him in the late 1930s; and 3. The former Amelia Earhart. Check it
out:
|
|
The three different Twentieth Century women who were attributed to
the same "Irene Craigmile" identity:
One: The original Irene Craigmile
|
An old newsprint photo of a twenty-six year old, Irene
Craigmile shown in 1930 with her then-husband, Charles Craigmile, who died the following year, and her father, Richard Joseph
O'Crowley.
|
These three
photos are said to display the original Irene Craigmile who Amelia Earhart had been acquainted with in the 1930s. You'll see
them repeatedly displayed in this website as most all legible photos of the original Irene before the 1940s were either expunged
or appeared to be of questionable origin. Anymore it is clear that the original Irene Craigmile disappeared from view during
the World War Two years, and from the mid-1940s on, two other women were attributed to her same identity as you will see below.
|
Above: From an old newspaper photo, the original Irene
Craigmile as she looked in 1932
Above: 1934 photo of the original Irene Craigmile and
her son, Clarence 'Larry' Heller.
|
Below, at his attorney's office in Manhattan, initially
in 2006, Clarence Alvin "Larry" Heller positively identified this "Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam" to have
been his late-mother in younger and older forms as she looked in the 1940s and 1970s. In 2014, Mr. Heller once again confirmed
his positive ID placement in writing in the following manner, where he refers to the two younger and older images below:
Larry Heller: Friday, February 21, 2014
Re: ID Verification of his "mother" in younger and older forms
"The attached pictures are of my mother and she was not Amelia Earhart. Proof is
available. Signed, Clarence Alvin 'Larry' Heller, February 21, 2014."
Note: The last
image on the right superimposes the two left photos to show their younger-to-older forensic congruence. To be sure, enlargements
of their eyes show the perfect tear-duct to tear-duct alignment.
Two: The Irene Craigmile ID'd by Larry Heller; or, the 'second' Irene
Craigmile
|
|
|
Above and below, faces and eyes superimposed displaying their forensic
congruence:
|
Below is the other Mrs. Irene Craigmile
Bolam, the 'third' one, who proved to be a head-to-toe forensic match to Amelia Earhart. She was seen nowhere identified as
'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s. The photo on the far left below was taken in 1946. Larry Heller attested he had never seen
it before. The middle photo below was taken in 1965, the far right image shows the two photos superimposed displaying the
younger to older forensic congruence. Larry Heller affirmed he had seen the 1965 photo, that appeared in the withdrawn controversial
1970 book, Amelia Earhart Lives, but added how he thought it represented the same person he identified as his mother
in the above photos. It turned out she wasn't the same person. She was the former Amelia Earhart who shared his mother's
identity after the World War Two years, as seen further below and in the multitude of other comparisons the forensic study
produced.
Three: The former Amelia Earhart; or, the 'third' Irene Craigmile
|
Above, the Amelia people recognized faded from view to become...
...the third Irene Craigmile, shown here in 1946
|
|
|
Below are the above Irene Craigmile's eyes and the eyes of
who she used to be, Amelia Earhart, shown in a perfect tear-duct to tear-duct superimposed photographic alignment. Note, anyone
can do this type of forensic overlay.
More 1960s and 1970s images of the former
Amelia Earhart living as Irene Craigmile Bolam in the latter half of the Twentieth Century. The study exhibited nothing less
than a head-to toe physical and character traits forensic match:
|
Irene
|
Amelia
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
|
Irene
|
Amelia
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
|
Amelia
|
Amelia
|
Amelia
|
| |
1976 in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia
|
I'm still in touch with Larry Heller, who now lives
in Florida. When I interviewed him he mentioned that he held no photos of his mother showing her prior to 1947. He continues
to shy away from embracing or discussing the plurality attributed to his late mother's identity, even though it is forensically
obvious anymore this was the case. Moving on, during my journey I also travelled a lot to meet and interview a variety of other key
Irene-Amelia players, some who reckoned her as the former Amelia Earhart, and I shot a ton of great footage while doing
so. During
the progressive strides I made with my documentary, though, it also became difficult to keep moving forward with it. The film
elements sat on my office shelf for years as I continued to study the art of forensically comparing people to each
other, before I was able to get back to them. As well, to get it all suffuciently right, the overall project ended
up requiring a far greater effort and was taking much more time and money than I initially speculated. Not to mention I was
too stubborn to let anyone else help pay for the darn thing, and few appeared interested in doing that anyway. My overall effort is supported
by three full file cabinets and many other file boxes of gathered material I keep in a spare bedroom closet. I also own and
have read just about every Amelia Earhart book published to date. This includes the the wide variety of those that focused
on trying to explain the true outcome of Amelia's controversial 1937 disappearance, all of which amounted to educated guesses,
really. (Of course some were better researched and therefore more educated that others, to be sure.) My personal viewpoint merely
states that the long-ago withheld truth about Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance in-turn invented the mystery
of her so-called 'disappearance' by default. I can add how after the former Amelia Earhart's death was recorded in 1982, the
hidden reality of her post-war existence as 'Irene Craigmile Bolam' segued to become a kind of a historical joke once played
on the American public. After all, when the former Amelia was point blank asked in the 1970s by a good friend of hers if she
used to be Amelia Earhart (?) she replied, "When I die you'll find out." Except people didn't find out then. Instead,
they had to wait another three decades to be able to identify it for themselves, that's right, by way of my human comparison
study and the incontestable results it achieved. 'Forgot to mention, from 1998 on my Irene-Amelia work has been referenced in a variety
of newspapers, in various internet blogs and in different websites, and most often with negative overtones attatched to them.
Over the years I also wrote, refined, and issued a handful of substantial Irene-Amelia manuscripts, and though copyrighted,
I never formally published any of them. Here's why: It grew on me how people in general did not like the
Irene-Amelia story. It's true. Even though my forensic realization proved to be accurate, where unknown to the public Amelia's 1930s
friend, the original Irene Craigmile stopped appearing in plain view while she was still in her thirties--leaving simple
math to figure out who the post war Irene Craigmile was who appeared from out of nowhere and proved herself to have been
a perfect match to Amelia--what prevented me from delivering this truth was a common perception I gleaned along
the way--of how people actually liked tracking the 'mystery' that hovered over what really happened to Amelia Earhart.
In the meantime, on the other hand, due to a lack of support caused by so many negative reactions to the Irene-Amelia assertion
from years gone by, the same people found it hard to appreciate (or like) that aspect of it. The curious
thing is, hindsight now reveals how the 'Irene-Amelia' chapter contained in the investigative research on "the mystery
of Amelia Earhart's disappearance," was by far the most significant part of it all. Yet even as it currently stands,
the vast majority of people still refuse to take it seriously, although the release of my documentary is sure to change that.
Yes,
the noticeable common viewpoint is due to change because the post World War Two true story of the Mrs. Irene Craigmile
Bolam who was the former Amelia Earhart, that ended up lost in the shuffle of it all, has been found. As Amelia and as Irene,
here was one very special life-long individual human being, more than anyone might have imagined. For instance, in the 1960s,
when she worked with her English husband running Radio Luxembourg, their station helped introduce the Beatles to Russia by
freely broadcasting beyond the Iron Curtain! She also knew a few NASA astronauts and watched the first moon landing on television!
By golly Amy Kleppner, Dr. Tom Crouch, and Dorothy Cochrane... wont it be nice when people are finally
allowed to embrace the story of Amelia Earhart's post World War Two existence in the United States, or even more-so, to
love the person Amelia lived to become?
 'Might add here, author W.C. Jameson was incorrect in
his 2016 published book, Amelia Earhart: Beyond the Grave. Mr. Jameson wrote about me and my analysis in his book,
and while he agreed my conclusion about Amelia becoming Irene was correct, he added--and this was his own incorrect
assumption--that I had yet to present my Irene-Amelia forensic study anywhere, and he further suggested the methodology I
used was questionable. Had W.C. Jameson reached out to me I would have set him straight. When I began planning my comparison
analysis I consulted with different forensic experts. One suggested I go with the superimposed photos method since physical
body evidence was no longer available. (Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam was purportedly, "cremated and buried in a common,
unmarked grave," according to Rutgers University that affirmed it received Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam's body after her
death was recorded in 1982.) Digital Facial ID validation, or the comparing of face-prints is practically the same thing as
using true photos for superimposed facial recognition validations. After all, a face print is a face print, and Digital Facial
ID validation is just a newer photographic way to compare them. The difference in my study's case was entire bodies were compared using the 'superimposed'
photos technique, right down to tear-ducts. As well, I did display my study and its conclusive results more than a few times, most
notably to the National Geographic Channel team that asked me to do so years before Mr. Jameson's book was published. It's
true, how after learning about my forensic analysis when it was reported on by the Associated Press, Nat Geo asked me to
appear with it on a special it was planning to produce about Amelia Earhart. I agreed to and they covered the cost to transport
my forensic study that included twelve large display panels I described as 'filmable' to them, that visually revealed how
my final conclusion was drawn. They also transported myself of course, along with my study to its filming location in Hawaii.
After I set it all up for them, the Nat Geo team gazed at
the display and digested what it forensically revealed. Appearing a bit flummoxed by it all, they then privately conferred
before asking me to take it all down without filming it. One of the Nat Geo producers shyly explained to me, "we
can't say the Amelia Earhart mystery is solved in our program." I replied that the Amelia Earhart mystery was
not solved, but the forensic study proved Amelia Earhart's missing person case was solved. That didn't seem to register
with him, but below the following images I'll explain what I meant by my comment.
|
One of National Geographic's "Where's Amelia Earhart"
sets in Hawaii
|
Above, displayed on a National Geographic Channel film set in Hawaii
were six of the twelve panels that featured key elements of my human forensic comparison analysis--that cleanly displayed
the three different Twentieth Century women who were attributed to the same Irene Craigmile identity, and how the former Amelia
Earhart, who became known as Irene Craigmile after World War Two ended, appeared nowhere identified as 'Irene' prior to the
end of the war. Stifling the process of the reveal, after it arranged to have the panels shipped to its filming location,
Nat Geo's producers asked me to remove them from the set before filming commenced and made no reference to them in its final
program edit. Rather, it endeavored to downplay the Irene-Amelia controversy. Now, getting back to Amelia's missing person case being solved without her
mystery being solved, try looking at it this way: A person suddenly goes missing. The person's family reports it to the police
and it becomes a missing person case. Then one day someone comes upon a body in some remote location, and it is soon after
confirmed that it is the missing person's body. That does not solve the mystery of how the missing person's body ended up
in that remote location.
The
point I wish to make here is that no one in the public realm, including myself, knows where Amelia actually was or what she
was actually doing from the time she went missing in 1937, until after the end of World War Two, when her body evidence
first displayed itself newly re-identified as, 'Irene Craigmile.' That mystery still remains as high-nutrient food for thought.
To be sure, private investigators drew their own conclusions about what happened to Amelia in past decades, but really, their
final offerings were all just educated guesses. Oh and by the way, you've heard and will continue to hear a variety of Amelia Earhart theorists
offer other 'Amelia final fate' suggestions such as TIGHAR's Richard Gillespie, who claims Amelia died on a desert island;
or author Mike Campbell, who claims Japan's military executed Amelia; or Ukrainian physicist, Dr. Alex Mandel, who
encourages people to believe Amelia crashed into the ocean and sank in deep water.
|
Richard Gillespie's TIGHAR club has long
promoted that Earhart and Noonan flew off course far into no-man's land and ditched on the island of Nikumaroro where they
died as castaways. The Smithsonian has always discounted this idea and maintains TIGHAR never produced any real evidence to
back such a claim. Some items TIGHAR did find there we later attributed to debris from a long ago attempt to colonize the
island.
|
Above, Mike Campbell's book insists Japan's
military executed Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. Although a strong case has long existed that states the duo ended up in
the Marshall Islands under Japan's stewardship, Japan has always insisted that it 'never harmed' Earhart or Noonan.
|
Ukranian Physicist, Dr. Alex Mandel,
the original sole author of his own falsely-concocted and self-moderated Wikipedia page about Irene Craigmile Bolam, has long
promoted the crashed and sank version of NAUTICOS that states after Earhart and Noonan messaged they could not find their
target of Howland Island, they flew on in radio silence and eventually crashed into the ocean to sink fathoms below the surface.
Although the U.S. justice department has always remained silent about the duo's disappearance, there is little doubt the,
'they crashed and sank' suggestion has always been the one it preferred the public viewpoint to favor.
|
There is also a young newcomer by the name Chris Williamson. Chris
had hunted me down for some time before I agreed to meet with him in 2017. He seemed pretty uninformed about the overall
Earhart mystery as he had not yet read Fred Goerner's 1966 classic book, The Search For Amelia Earhart, nor 1970's
Amelia Earhart Lives by Joe Klaas, nor Randall Brink's 1994 updated comprehensive analysis of the two, Lost Star.
Chris appeared somewhat nervous
when I met him at an L.A. library annex, but he was very convincing with his overt admiration of my Irene-Amelia forensic
work, so I agreed to loan him one of my early manuscripts and my compilation of past Amelia Earhart Society newsletters.
I also allowed him to film-interview me and some of my comparison samples, and I detailed for him how the forensic study I
orchestrated achieved its final conclusion. I now regret that I contributed a little financial help to what he assured me
was his own effort to, "pay tribute" to my Irene-Amelia study. He thanked me for doing so, then later called me
to say he was using what I gave him to travel he and his small film crew to Atchison, Kansas, Amelia's birthplace, where they
hold the annual Amelia Earhart Festival. After he arrived there that July, he decided to permanently move he and his family to Atchison! Amazing! To my surprise, Chris also started a club called 'Finding Amelia Earhart' that he soon
changed to, 'Chasing Earhart,' in what I initially thought was an homage to my own 'Protecting Earhart' moniker. Then, to my utter astonishment, while obviously sporting some major funding source he
never told me about, Chris publicly announced he would be embarking on his own Irene-Amelia forensic comparison study. This
is when it began to dawn on me that his agenda was to obscure my work within is his so-called "final solution" Earhart
documentary, that basically amounted to his redressing the new learned Irene-Amelia reality in order for him to be able to
claim some kind of ownership to it. This is not just my ego talking here. Crazy, no?
Below is my, 'Protecting Earhart' graphic illustration designed in 2016 by David
Harlan, that apparently served as some kind of inspiration for Chris Williamson's 'Chasing Earhart' endeavor:
Above and to the right, Earhart mystery
scene newcomer, Chris Williamson and his recent 'Chasing Earhart' invention
are set to begin doing pod-casts this year. After marshaling practically
all of the different Earhart mystery theories out there into his Chasing Earhart spectacle,
similar to how former Amelia Earhart Society president, the late Bill Prymak did from the 1980s into
the 2000s sans social media help, Chris's plan is to unveil his own Irene-Amelia
forensic analysis in an effort to take intellectual property ownership
of the final Earhart mystery solution. A computer programmer in his early 30s, Chris anymore refers to himself
as an, "Amelia Earhart documentarian." A new video trailer he put up
on the internet includes the Irene-Amelia conveyance without mentioning
myself or my study, yet offering at the same time, "It's time to put this one to bed." |
Chris Williamson |
It took a while for Chris Willamson to return my materials. I had
to keep calling him to make it happen. I eventually received them back damaged. He had photo-copied every page; the bindings
were broken with pieces missing and some pages were not in order. Chris clearly became obsessed with my on-line since 2007 Irene-Amelia story, and even
more after he was exposed to some of my additional important research materials. Later, imagine how I felt after a friend
of mine sent me an audio clip from a 2018 radio interview in which Chris Williamson diminished my long-term study by referring
to it as, "some interesting looking pictures (he) would be looking into." (I couldn't believe my ears.) Naturally I was disappointed. Take some friendly advice, Chris Williamson: Be careful.
Try not to let your own ego get the best of you as it did in the cases of Ric Gillespie, Mike Campbell, Alex Mandel and a
few others from the past. Learn to accept and love the former Amelia Earhart as the person she became. Spiritually, she had
grown a lot. This is very important to identify, understand, and accept. And while you're at it give more respect to the past
investigative research team of Gervais, Swindell, and Reineck too. (& btw Chris: My lawyer's watching you.)
|
Richard Gillespie
|
Mike Campbell
|
Dr. Alex Mandel
|
Additionally, the individuals referenced earlier, displayed
above, have always been sure to berate my forensic analysis and the conclusion drawn from it as having stemmed from, 'a baseless
argument.' They have demonstrated a tendency to call the results of my forensic research and comparison study 'ridiculous'
or 'outright untrue' to anyone who asks them about it. Don't listen to them. They are the ones not telling the truth. Simply trust knowing that
no one in the public realm knows more about the Irene-Amelia story than myself. Very truly yours, Tod Swindell ~~~
|
Below: The individual largely credited for starting the 'Earhart truth seeking effort' way
back in 1959, Major Joseph A. Gervais
|
|
Tod Swindell and Joseph A. Gervais in 2002, during what became a decade-long collaboration.
|
Above left: World War Two pilot
hero and Amelia Earhart historian, Major Joseph A. Gervais USAF (Ret.) at his Earhart award ceremony held on February 5, 2000.
From 1970 on, until his passing took place in 2005, Major Gervais never disavowed his controversial assertion about Amelia
Earhart becoming known as an important woman he met in 1965--and then spent the next five years researching the background
of--Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam.
~~~ How It Began Most aviation history buffs
have heard about the World War Two hero who made headlines in 1970 by asserting that Amelia Earhart quietly survived her 1937
disappearance, that she changed her name to 'Irene' during the war years, and that she was alive and well living in New Jersey.
The
New Jersey woman known as 'Irene' refuted his assertion and soon after it was discredited. In time a running joke also came
to exist over the suggested idea of Amelia Earhart ending up as, "a New Jersey housewife." While the controversy over
the New Jersey woman faded as years passed, it also remained unsettled and was perpetually argued against until Tod Swindell's
forensic analysis proved it was true, even to the point of obvious, except for the "New Jersey housewife" part.
Above
is a 1982 composite illustration from a news article series that surfaced a few months after Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam died.
Since many individuals continued to view her past as suspect, to include some close friends of hers, the concocted series
was deemed necessary to again steer the curious away from it. At first the series appeared to (once again) openly question
who Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam really was, or used to be, before it (once again) falsely concluded there was nothing
unusual about her. Of note, no physical comparisons were featured in the series that served as a red herring by combining
the likenesses of different individuals to look like one individual. This was twelve years after Joseph A. Gervias' initial
assertion about Irene took place. Twenty years later, in 2002, the Associated Press
issued the first news article to mention the Irene-Amelia comparison study Tod Swindell had recently embarked on. The following
quote appeared in it:
"The forensic studies are very convincing. She was not
an ordinary housewife. She was influential, knew many well placed people and was well traveled."
John Bolam, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam's survived brother-in-law who had openly questioned her true identity, comments on
the initial results of Tod Swindell's Irene-Amelia forensic analysis in an Associated Press article by Ron Staton.
The 2002 article marked the first national news item to announce the advent of the analysis. [Lead-in to the article below;
see the full article further down.]
"It's funny and telling as well how printed news sometimes works.
I never told Ron Staton of the Associated Press that I believed Amelia was, ""captured by the Japanese and secretly
repatriated, living as a New Jersey housewife."" Those were his words, not mine." Tod Swindell
The
Story Continues Below: The November-1970 Press Conference Irene Craigmile Bolam Held At The Time-Life Building In New York
City, and her Subsequent Defamation Law Suit...
Above, the post mid-1940s Irene Craigmile Bolam
flanked by images of her former self at her November of 1970 press conference. She called the conference in order to denounce
the new book, Amelia Earhart Lives that implied she might be the living 'former' Amelia Earhart. She attended the conference
unaccompanied and 'handled the press like an old pro.' Necessarily, she denied she was Amelia Earhart in the present
tense by saying, "I am not a mystery woman and I am not Amelia Earhart." In subsequent decades it was realized
there were some important international reasons dating back to the World War Two era that protected the knowledge of her previous
existence as, 'Amelia Earhart.' Once again, consider the quote below:
"Numerous
investigations foundered on official silence in Tokyo and Washington,
leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan
an everlasting mystery." From Bender & Altschul's 1982 Pan Am Airways anthology,
The Chosen Instrument
|
Amelia Earhart, 1935 "God, the world hounded that woman after she became famous."
A quote from famous pilot, Jackie Cochran, recalling her friend, Amelia Earhart. Jackie also mentioned that during the year
Amelia was prepping for her world flight she was "closer to Amelia than anyone else, even her husband, George Putnam."
Jackie's husband, Floyd Odlum helped finance Amelia's 1937 world flight effort.
|
November, 1970, the former Amelia Earhart, AKA Mrs. Irene Bolam,
ready to take on the press in order to preserve her dignity and the legacy of who she used to be.
|
"I am not a mystery woman and I am not Amelia Earhart."
Mrs. Irene Bolam was convincing when she stated this at her press conference in response to the assertion made by former Air
Force Captain, Joseph A. Gervais, found in the book, Amelia Earhart Lives shown above in the foreground. Although her
present-tense denial was accepted then, decades later a thorough analysis of her background revealed she appeared nowhere
as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s, because she indeed had been previously known as Amelia Earhart.
|
Above, four years after
she held her press conference, her defamation lawsuit against Amelia Earhart Lives publisher, McGraw-Hill, and separately against Joseph
A. Gervais and the book's author, Joe Klaas, was still "up in the air" as seen in this 1974 headline. Why? Because
Joseph A. Gervais was still asserting that Mrs. Bolam might be the former Amelia Earhart living under a different, post World
War Two 'assumed' identity. Note: Her defamation lawsuit only cited factual errors the book contained about her post
World War Two life that she felt were damaging to her reputation; she did not sue anyone for asserting she used to be known
as Amelia Earhart. When her lawsuit ended by way of a summary judgment in 1975, she paid Gervais and Klass ten dollars
in consideration and the two men paid her the same amount. Why? She ultimately refused to submit her fingerprints as proof-positive
of her identity. It is true however, McGraw-Hill was ordered to pay her $60,000 for the 'damaging' factual errata the book
contained about her post World War Two life. (She had originally sued for $1.5 million dollars.) Again, one will not find
this accurate account by reading history books or doing conventional internet searches.
~~~
About The 1970 Book, Amelia Earhart Lives By Joe Klaas Directly below is the book that started it all, Amelia Earhart Lives. Although it was chocked with
some far-out suppositions in its attempt to explain what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan in 1937, it did manage
to feature the 1965 photograph of the former Amelia Earhart when she was known as "Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam,"
taken by Joseph A. Gervais when the two met each other. Following the book's release
it ended up being ceaselessly ridiculed after the former Amelia Earhart strongly negated it, no doubt for her own good reasons.
Fortunately for her, many people who looked at the 1965 Gervais taken photograph had a hard time seeing through to who she
used to be. She did look different, but she was still there, and she is still there and always will be there. The forensic
tale-of-the-tape proved it out. Once the bell-ring of the photo's inclusion in the book took place, nothing could un-ring
it. World War Two hero, Joseph A. Gervais always knew this, and he never stopped repeating it to others to his dying day in
2005.
| Based on the research findings of Joe Gervais... |
|
| 'Amelia Earhart Lives' by Joe klaas. Published by McGraw-Hill, November 1970 |
|
| The Gervais-Irene and Guy Bolam |
|
| From the 1970 book, 'Amelia Earhart Lives' by Joe Klaas |
|
|
| Amelia Earhart, 1937 |
|
| The Gervais-Irene Bolam |
|
| August 8, 1965 |
|
| ...superimposed shows the obvious congruence... |
|
Above: Different looks of Amelia
Earhart when she was in her early to mid-thirties. ~~~
A crucial
part about recognizing the importance of the new Irene-Amelia forensic realizations:
"After we entered the Twenty-First Century the truth about Irene Craigmile grew to be self-evident,
although one will still not find it in history books or by searching Wikipedia. This is because, evidently,
it was all-but buried many years ago." Tod Swindell
|
The Original Irene
To the right again is the 1930 photo of the original Irene Craigmile with her
husband, Charles Craigmile, and her father, Richard Joseph ("Joe") O'Crowley. Once a fledgling pilot, Irene Craigmile
and Amelia Earhart became friends through Irene's paternal aunt, a prominent New York attorney by the name of Irene Rutherford
O'Crowley. Attorney O'Crowley was a Zonta organization sister of Amelia's and an occasional 'legal contract advisor' for her
brand-name business endeavors, that included the popular Amelia Earhart luggage line.
|
|
|
|
The post mid-1940s Irene
This proud looking woman
to the right was not the original Irene Craigmile, but she began using that same name in the mid-1940s. Note: She was
seen nowhere identified as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s, and in recent years the reason for this surfaced.
|
|
|
~~~
Above is a photograph of the affluent, enigmatic woman who was
known as Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam taken in Jamaica in 1976. In the 1930s she was known as 'Amelia Earhart.' ~~~
"The odd thing is, it's not only true, but over time the truth about Earhart
grew to be obvious. It's just that people have been led to believe otherwise ever since it surfaced in the 1970s."
Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, USAF (Ret.), author of the 2004 book, Amelia Earhart Survived. Colonel Reineck, a World
War Two Joint Chiefs of Staff advisor, first began investigating Amelia Earhart's disappearance in the 1960s.
~~~
"Either you deal with
what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you." Alex Haley Reality
[noun]: The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
~~~ Below: Four
Investigative Authors And Their 'Final Conclusion' Books That Called It Like It Was, Still Is, And Always Will Be...
From
1970 to 2016, these four nationally published books presented the same conclusion. They each stated that Amelia Earhart quietly
continued to survive after she went missing in 1937, and at some point she changed her name to Irene Craigmile:
|
| By Joe Klaas with Joseph A. Gervais |
|
|
| By Robert Myers and Barbara Wiley |
|
|
| By USAF Colonel Rollin C. Reineck (Ret.) |
|
|
| By. W.C. Jameson |
|
The authors of these books concluded that Amelia Earhart, who went
'missing' in 1937, resurfaced in the United States known as 'Irene Craigmile' following the World War Two years. The most
recent ones by Reineck and Jameson cited the forensic research and human comparison study referenced and partially displayed
in the Irene-Amelia.com website, that has existed on-line since 2007 uncontested, notated it as the first forensic
analysis to provide both logistical and visual evidence of this long subdued reality. This continues to be the case in lieu
of strong opposing forces that prefer the general public not pay attention to the information this website and the books'
authors convey. In the interim, generally overlooked by those truly interested in this story was the looming
question: "What became of the original Irene Craigmile?" This is where the crux of the true story about
Amelia Earhart exists, for ever since the World War Two era the public has been steadfastly conditioned to believe it was
Amelia Earhart who disappeared without a trace, not Irene Craigmile. Now it is known it was the original Irene Craigmile's body that forever disappeared,
and in turn, Amelia Earhart's body in its physical form continued to exist until 1982, after assuming the original Irene Craigmile's
left-over identity during the World War Two era. As hard as this may still be for some to believe, it's really that simple
to explain anymore.
The Main Opponents It is evident the foremost opponents that have steadfastly decried the Irene-Amelia
truth to the public, to include Dr. Alex Mandel, TIGHAR's Richard Gillespie, authors Dave Horner and Mike Campbell, members
of Amelia's extended family, and even constituents of the Smithsonian Institution, [the Smithsonian is a ward of the U.S.
government and therefore answers to it; note how the U.S. government has always maintained an 'official silence viewpoint'
towards Amelia Earhart's disappearance] they prefer for people to believe that Amelia could not possibly have managed to
survive beyond a brief period of time after she went missing in 1937. Instead, in their individual counterpoint ways
they optioned to promote the following three alternate suggestions: 1.) Amelia and her navigator made it to a remote desert island and soon after
perished there. 2.)
Amelia was executed by Japan's military on Saipan, or died some other way while in Japan's custody during the pre-dawn of
World War Two. 3.)
After missing their intended destination of Howland Island, the promoted assumption became that Amelia and her navigator ended
up flying in radio silence and eventually ran out of fuel leaving them to crash into the ocean and sink fathoms below the
surface. (This has long existed as the most preferred official viewpoint.)
Setting The Record Straight
Continuing with the reality-based truth about the long-ago 1930s friendship
that existed between Amelia Earhart and the original Irene Craigmile, and its eventual mind-boggling outcome...
~~~
On The Evolution of Truth: "All truth passes
through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer
Non-Truthful Flags Thrown
On The Play... Before continuing on, it is essential
to identify an abjuration movement led by a collection of private individuals since 2006, who commonly aligned to divert
public attention away from accepting Tod Swindell's newly discovered and revealed, 'Irene-Amelia realities.'
Their common objective was clear: 'Steer people away from even considering the idea that Amelia Earhart survived her 1937
disappearance and lived well beyond the World War Two era.' The fellow below plays a significant part within this agenda
driven constituency.
Dr. Alex Mandel A quick note for Wikipedia users:
Wikipedia has it wrong. The truth is, no forensic expert
has ever concluded that the post mid-1940s Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam and Amelia Earhart were different individual human beings.
However, using Wikipedia as a soap-box to distract the public, the man above has managed to manipulate people to think otherwise,
and he neatly skipped-over the other learned forensic realities about Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam as well.
For the past ten years a Ukrainian Nuclear Physicist and self-proclaimed 'Amelia Earhart fanatic,'
Dr. Alex Mandel, has been misleading the public about the Irene-Amelia story on his self-built, self-moderated 'Irene Craigmile
Bolam' Wikipedia page. Fearing Amelia's heroic legacy and reputation might be harmed by the Irene-Amelia truth, he constructed
and launched his page after learning of the forensic study that displayed the reality of more than one Twentieth Century woman
having been attributed to the same Irene Craigmile Bolam identity. Should anyone try to add any of the missing Irene-Amelia
'forensic truths' to his page he is quick to edit them out. His page may have a clean appearance, but it merely presents the
same incorrect concoction about Irene Craigmile Bolam that has been fed to the public for decades. Dr.
Mandel actually features the following statement in his article, even though the forensic detective he referred to denies
he ever forensically 'concluded' anything Irene-Amelia wise, nor did he cite "many measurable facial differences"
that enabled him to state such a conclusion. None the less, Dr. Mandel wrote: "In 2006 a criminal forensic expert was
hired by National Geographic to study photographs of Earhart and Bolam and cited many measurable facial differences between
them, concluding that the two people were not the same." The truth? A forensic
detective by the name of Kevin Richlin appeared on a National Geographic Channel special about the Earhart mystery in 2006,
after he was given a few photos of Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam that were taken in the 1970s. From the start detective Richlin
treated the notion of Amelia changing her name to Irene as if it was a joke, and critized the show's producers for the limited
information he was given to at all evaluate the suggestion. And as mentioned, he ultimately did not forensically 'conclude'
anything. It is individuals of Dr. Mandel's ilk that harm Wikipedia's reputation
and shore-up the adage, "Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia." ~~~
Below find three different panels the culminate with Irene-Amelia
superimposed images. The first panel below displays the post World War Two identified Irene Craigmile who used to be known
as Amelia Earhart. The next panels under it show her transition from Amelia into Irene:
|
| Amelia, 1923 |
|
|
| Amelia, 1933 |
|
|
| Amelia, 1928 |
|
|
| Amelia, 1932 |
|
|
| Amelia, 1928 |
|
The next panel below displays the above Irene & Amelia photo
images superimposed with each other:
| Superimposed |
|
| 1923, 1978 |
|
| Superimposed |
|
| 1933, 1965 |
|
| Superimposed |
|
| 1928, 1963 |
|
| Superimposed |
|
| 1932, 1976 |
|
| Superimposed |
|
| 1928, 1977 |
|
Below is a 1965 photo of the post mid-1940s Irene
in Cocoa Beach, Florida taken "a day after she visited some astronaut friends she knew as NASA," according to her
brother in law, John Bolam who lived on nearby Merritt Island. Under the photo, progressing to the right she superimposes
into her former 'Amelia' self.
Forensic:
Relating to or denoting applications of scientific methodology during the course of an investigation in an effort to determine
the true origin of what is being investigated. Example: "They got him on ballistics; a forensic analysis determined
the bullet came from his gun." Forensic Evidence:
That suitable for argumentation in a court of law. ~~~ Irene
Compared To Amelia: Photographic Exactitude
Personal Character Traits Life-Long
Histories
Once again, the forensic research and forensic comparison results displayed here are part of a long-term
study that thoroughly analyzed each of the above topics pertaining to the historically recognized, albeit 'obscured intertwined
lives' of Amelia Earhart and Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam. During the close-out of the Twentieth Century and as
the new millennium commenced, this first-of-its-kind study was conceived and arranged in order to get to the bottom of a
never disavowed assertion publicly maintained for thirty-five years [1970-2005] by former USAF Captain, Joseph A. Gervais
(1924-2005).
Above: The former Amelia Earhart living
as 'Irene' in 1965. No matter
how hard it is for some to believe, anymore this is the know-truth about Amelia Earhart in a forensically determined way.
~~~
|
Above: Amelia in her early twenties, before she
received her pilot's license.
|
Above: Amelia at age thirty-nine, not long before
she went missing.
|
|
Above: Navigator & co-pilot, Fred Noonan
with pilot, Amelia Earhart. On the morning of July 2, 1937 they steered their aircraft in a certain direction and were purportedly
never seen again.
|
~~~ Next: How The Modern View Of
'The Mystery Of Amelia Earhart's Disappearance' Came To Exist... Beginning in the 1960s,
the modern view of the 'mystery' of Amelia Earhart's disappearance was born from serious research investigations that were
categorically shelved after being greeted by "official silence." Because of this, as time passed the subject of
their concern evolved to exist as an 'anything goes' commodity to Amelia Earhart cottage industries into the new
millennium. None the less, below are the most significant investigative research books from the Twentieth Century that most
thoroughly expounded Amelia Earhart's 1937 world flight and its outcome.
|
1966
|
1985
|
1993
|
About the most prominently recognized Twentieth Century books
to have examined the subject of Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance; above left, CBS Radio journalist, Fred Goerner's The Search For Amelia
Earhart was published by Doubleday in 1966 and became a Top-Ten New York Times best seller; above center, Vincent Loomis',
Amelia Earhart: The Final Story was published by Random House in 1985 and well-complemented Goerner's earlier effort;
above right, Randall Brink's, Lost Star: The Search For Amelia Earhart was published by W.W. Norton (U.S.) and Bloomsbury
Publishing LTD (U.K.) in 1993 and was touted by CBS's Connie Chung on its way to becoming a best seller in both the U.K. and
the U.S. All three authors referenced and were
originally inspired by the investigative efforts of former USAF Captain, Joseph A. Gervais, who from 1960-on had been tracking
Amelia Earhart's disappearance in the Pacific region where she went missing. Significantly, Randall Brink collaborated with
Joseph A. Gervais for a decade prior to his book's 1993 release. Each book concluded that Amelia Earhart and her navigator/co-pilot, Fred Noonan, went down at Mili Atoll
in the Marshall Islands where they were picked up by Japan's pre-World War Two Imperial Naval Authority. Their authors all
cited the 'overwhelming preponderance of evidence' that deemed it so, along with the U.S. justice department's ongoing 'official
silence' dating back to the World War Two era that refused to address it. Fred Goerner and Vincent Loomis concluded the duo met their demise while in Japan's custody. Randall Brink
drew no hard conclusion beyond the two having been sequestered by Japan as World War Two heated-up. Joseph A. Gervais,
who died in 2005, never stopped maintaining his own conclusion was correct, that at least Amelia Earhart quietly continued
to survive, and she eventually resurfaced in the United States sporting a new identity. Below is the other most significantly recognized
'Earhart disappearance investigative book' written by Joe Klaas, Amelia Earhart Lives, published by McGraw-Hill in
1970. Nicely packaged, Joe Klaas primarily focused his effort on the conclusion drawn by Joseph A. Gervais' 1960s' investigative
efforts, albeit in a somewhat casual, if not at times 'reckless' manner. While a terrific, well researched read, Klaas managed
to stray from the point his book was making by chocking it with some fantastic suppositions. This ended up harming not only
the book's credibility, but the credibility of Joe Klaas and Joseph A. Gervais as well. After noticing some awry information
the book contained that libeled the then-living woman known as 'Mrs. Irene Bolam,' Mrs. Bolam in turn sued for defamation
and the book was withdrawn, but not before making the New York Times 'Best Seller' list and being nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize. An estimated 40,000 copies were put into circulation in 1970 before it was pulled from the shelves. [The book was republished
in 2006 through the Author's Guild. See more below.]
On What Is
Now Known, And What Is Still Not Known... "In
a public sense, the true circumstances of Amelia's 1937 world flight ending--as well as where she was and what she was doing
during the World War Two years--remains unknown. Any information that previously attempted or still does attempt to explain
what actually happened to Amelia Earhart on July 2, 1937--and how she existed the following eight years--has only ever been
based on educated guesses. What is certain anymore is that Amelia Earhart resurfaced in the United States after the
war known as 'Irene,' and she publicly went by that name only until she died in 1982, even after she was outed for
who she used to be in 1970. This is what pure, unadulterated evidence reveals. It is also hard to blame her for denying her
true past when she unexpectedly stood accused, for if she had admitted who she used to be the last twelve years of her life
would have been very strenuous on her. As it was after 1970, her life became strenuous enough. We're talking about a real
person, a real human being, and when she died she knew who she'd become, and who she used to be."
Researcher, Tod Swindell ~~~
|
|
Tod Swindell
|
My take on the book featured
below by W.C. Jameson, published in 2016:
|
"W.C. Jameson has been around a long
time. A prolific author/musician, he is best known for his Beyond The Grave series of books that profiled different
'they didn't die that way' accounts, most notably about Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid, and John Wilkes Booth.
No one had heard of W.C Jameson in relationship to Amelia Earhart investigative research, though, before his Beyond The
Grave: Amelia Earhart book was published in 2016, wherein he stated that he agreed with the Amelia became Irene conclusion.
For some reason, he also inexplicably slighted Colonel Reineck and myself pertaining to our individual and combined contributions
that proved to be chiefly instrumental when it came to finally resolving the Irene-Amelia controversy. 'Much disappointment
in W.C. Jameson there. As an answer W.C. Jameson's statement where he wrote, "Though Swindell's photographic
analysis has been advanced on dozens of occaisions to point out the similarities between Earhart and Bolam (AKA 'Craigmile')
it proves absolutely nothing..." that was and always will remain an incorrect statement of Mr. Jameson's. For the photographic
analysis did prove for the first time, that the pre World War Two person of Amelia Earhart and the post World War
Two Irene Craigmile Bolam who Joseph A. Gervais met in 1965 were hauntingly congruent to each other after all, juxtaposed
to the multitude of individuals who for decades had steadfastly proclaimed they did not at all look alike. W.C. Jameson's
book also mentions nothing about the way the study separated the different Irene Craigmiles, something all forensic experts
who have viewed and who still view its plain results do agree with.
In response to his statement where he
myopically wrote that my comparison study was not backed by 'credentials,' apparently he did not consider reaching out to
the experts I consulted and/or worked with who did have credentials and fully recognized the methods I used. He also did not
mention how never had two efforts been rolled into one before; forensic research and human comparisons where
comparing Irene Craigmile to Amelia Earhart was the main concern. There was also no real trick to the methods I used during
the decades I devoted to evaluating and comparing straight forward Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile data.
This goes for the in depth background research I conducted on both Amelia Earhart and the original Irene Craigmile
individually, and the human comparison results the study achieved. No rocket science was involved. It wasn't
necessary because enough pre-existing information was available that already determined Amelia lived to become Irene. Said
truth just needed to be shored-up and my forensic study results did that. Simply put, W.C., wherever you are,
my original chosen subject matters to evaluate were 1.) Amelia Earhart's old missing person case, and 2.) My late friend,
Joseph A. Gervais's 1970 assertion he stood by to his dying day, that stated Amelia survived and took on her old pal, Irene
Craigmile's identity, and I worked hard at both. The results speak for themselves. All of his 'Beyond The Grave'
books and song-writings aside, W.C. Jameson demonstrated a certain level of literary irresponsibility to himself and to his
readers in his Earhart book, by not reaching out to me in order to correctly determine the full breadth of what my overall
research and comparative analysis entailed."
|
|
| Amelia under the nose of her Lockheed Electra 10E, 1937 |
|
|
| Different angle and look from the same series, Amelia Earhart, 1937 |
|
| Any further there is no doubt... |
|
| ...in the veracity of the Amelia/Irene head-to-toe forensic alignment |
Above:
Amelia and her later-life self, Irene Bolam superimposed with each other from Protecting Earhart's forensic comparison analysis.
The head-to-toe and character trait congruences the analysis displayed outed the same individual human being going by different
names in different eras.
|
February 5, 2000; top row left to right: Ronald Reuther,
Tod Swindell, Mr. & Mrs. John Bolam; bottom row, left to right: Ann Holtgren Pellegreno, Joe Klaas, Joseph A. Gervais
Lost Star
author, Randall Brink, first introduced Swindell and Gervais to each other in 1996, resulting in a 'forensic research sharing'
friendship that continued until Gervais' passing took place nine years later. From 1970 to his dying day in 2005, Joseph A.
Gervais never disavowed his assertion that stated Amelia Earhart survived her disappearance without public awareness, and
that during
the World War Two years she
assumed the identity of 'Irene Craigmile,' a past acquaintance of hers. After he met Joe Gervais, upon learning one had never
been done before, Tod Swindell orchestrated a forensic comparison analysis to see if the aged, historically discounted, and
nearly forgotten 'Gervais assertion' about Amelia held any true weight. The results of Tod Swindell's 'first of its
kind' decade long study, samples of which are seen throughout this website, not only proved Joseph A. Gervais was correct
with his steadfast assertion, but too, that his truth was 'forensically obvious' when all was said and done.
USAF Captain Joseph A. Gervais was a accomplished pilot
who flew combat missions in World War Two, the Korean War, and the early days of the Vietnam War. In 1959, while he
was stationed in the Pacific in the area she went missing, he began investigating Amelia Earhart's disappearance
after hearing accounts of her non-publicized 'post-loss survival.' In 1970, by way of the book, Amelia Earhart Lives,
he first publicly asserted his belief that one of Amelia Earhart's long-ago pilot friends, Viola Gentry, had introduced him
to the 'former' Amelia Earhart in New York at a 1965 gathering of early aviators, averring that he recognized her right away.
His claim caused much consternation and was greeted by endless amounts of ridicule in the years that followed. No matter,
having looked into it more than anyone else in the Twentieth Century, as mentioned Joseph A. Gervais died in 2005 never disavowing
his certainty that Amelia Earhart survived her disappearance and changed her name to 'Irene' during the World War Two era. He qualified his statement by offering it was something the general public was
simply, "never supposed to know."
That's the basic truth. After deeply looking into
it, Joseph A. Gervais, who retired from the Air Force as a Major in 1963, ascertained that Amelia Earhart and the Mrs. Irene
Craigmile Bolam he met in 1965 had existed as the same life-long individual human being known
by different names in different eras, without the public knowing about it.
Not only had Joe Gervais heroically
served as a pilot in three wars before retiring from his military career as a Major, but he was also a family man well-liked
and noted for his good character. Generally unrealized into the new millennium, Joseph A. Gervais' assertion about Mrs. Irene Craigmile
Bolam was never forensically over-challenged. This is because, as it is now plainly evident to see, it was true. Prior to his passing in 2005, upon Tod Swindell showing him the initial results of the analysis
with his wife, Thelma Gervais, Joseph A. Gervais commented, "It just shows what we've known all along." One caveat remained:
Over the years people have countered time and again, "what about DNA?" This proved unavailable.
When she died in 1982, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam donated her body to Rutger's Medical College in New Jersey with a pre-written
stipulation it was only to be accessed by its attending medical technicians. In response to what became of her remains, the
school replied her body was "cremated and her remains were buried in a common, unmarked grave." So just as Amelia
Earhart's body was purported to have 'never been seen again' after July 2, 1937; after Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam died on
July 7, 1982, her body was never seen again either, at least, not by anyone outside the walls of Rutger's Medical College,
according to record. The catch became, as the analysis also realized and surely displays, there was an original Irene Craigmile who Amelia Earhart knew in the 1930s--whose identity she ended up
assuming for herself to use in the United States after the World War Two years. ~~~
A still repressed historical truth... Since the early 1970s, the discovery of Amelia Earhart's continued
existence as a renamed person after the World War Two era has been obfuscated and repressed by a variety of strong influences
in an effort to keep the general public from embracing it as a historical reality. None the less, in the past decade the now undeniable forensic reality
pertaining to what became of Amelia Earhart after she went missing grew to be obvious. Here it is: There
were no less than three different Twentieth Century women attributed to the same 'Irene Craigmile Bolam'
identity, and one of them, who appeared nowhere identified as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s, had been previously
known as Amelia Earhart. She died in 1982, under a cloud of suspicion that began questioning her true identity ever
since the controversy over who she really was--or used to be--first surfaced in 1970.
The above paragraph presently exists as an under-appreciated
factual statement. ~~~
The three Twentieth Century women who were attributed to the same
'Irene Craigmile' identity:
|
Irene Craigmile 1 1930
|
Irene Craigmile 2 Early 1940s
|
Irene Craigmile 3 1946
|
Reviewing the full-frame 1930 photo of Amelia Earhart's
long ago acquaintance, Irene Craigmile, it shows her standing between her husband, Charles "James" Craigmile on
her right, a Civil Engineer who tragically died in 1931, and her father, Richard Joseph "Joe" O'Crowley to her left.
Charles
and Irene Craigmile were married in late 1928. At the time Charles was 38 and Irene was 24. [Note: The original Irene Craigmile was also known as "Beatrice"
and was nicknamed "Bee."] Beyond the realization that no clear photos of the original Irene Craigmile exist in the
public realm today, prior to the mid-1940s her life is still researchable. Described to have been born, 'Irene Madeline O'Crowley
on October 1, 1904' [her birth certificate was never located but that likely was the date] Irene was an only child who was
raised by her extended O'Crowley family after her mother, Bessie (AKA 'Bridget') Doyle O'Crowley died when she was twelve.
Irene
was listed as "age 14" in the 1920 Census but that was likely incorrect where she would have been 15 when the census
form was filled out by her paternal grandmother, Sarah Rutherford O'Crowley, the head of the household. Like Amelia, the original
Irene attended Columbia University in New York, but only briefly. In 1926, when the original Irene was twenty-two she became
pregnant out of wedlock. Although she later claimed to have 'miscarried' then, a son actually was born to her and adopted
by her nearby uncle, Dr. Clarence Rutherford O'Crowley and his wife, Violet, who raised him to adulthood. This enabled Irene's
first born to remain in the family fold, and for her to marry Charles 'James' Craigmile in 1928 unencumbered. [Note:
It is questionable if Charles Craigmile knew his wife previously had a child before his death from appendicitis took place
in late 1931.] When
Charles James Craigmile died, he and Irene had been married less than three years. The 1930 Census listed them living alone
together in Pequannock, New Jersey. Charles James Craigmile's occupation was listed "Civil Engineer" and Irene's
was "Keeps House." In the late spring of 1933, about a year and a half after her husband died, the original Irene Craigmile's
brief stint as a licensed pilot was interrupted when she learned she had once again become pregnant by way of her last flight
instructor, Al Heller, who she subsequently eloped with to wed. After she gave birth to their child in early 1934, a son, according to record
she continued to fly sporadically--but she did not renew her license after 1936. Her marriage to Al Heller
failed quickly as well and was annulled after Irene learned Al was still legally married to another woman when they eloped.
Court records show their marriage annulment, child visitation rights and custody battle was a trying episode that lasted from
1938 to 1942. In the interim of it all, a surrogate nanny-mother figure for their son surfaced. She became known as the 'second'
Irene Craigmile. [Amelia Earhart, who was declared "dead in absentia" in 1939, would become the 'third' Irene Craigmile.]
According to one Diana Dawes in the 1990s, a later-life friend of the former Amelia Earhart, at some point the original
Irene's demise took place and it was covered over so Amelia could further use her identity. Today, when and how the original
Irene's demise took place remains unknown but it likely occurred during the early World War Two years. She and Al's 1934 born
son was sent to live at a boarding school when he was still quite young during the war as well, where he graduated from at
the age of thirteen in 1947. The 1934 born son of the original Irene Craigmile and Al Heller, Clarence 'Larry' Heller, first in 2006 at
his attorney's office in New York, then once again in 2014, estimated the photo below, that he positively identified as his
"late mother" was, "taken around 1940." Anymore it is certain, however, that the person in the photograph
was not his biological mother. Tod Swindell offers a different vantage point to consider about who she may have been.
Check it out:
Below: Beyond
the miracle of her own birth, this Irene Craigmile had no other known-of miracles attributed to her person. Her 'Irene' name
and identity, however, were never exclusively her own.
More Back-Story: As mentioned, Amelia Earhart had been a good Zonta organization friend
of Irene Craigmile's aunt, a noted New York attorney by the name of Irene Rutherford O'Crowley who introduced her niece, Irene
Craigmile to Amelia some time after Amelia became a 'Sister Zonta' in 1928. Attorney Irene O'Crowley was fourteen years older
than Amelia, and according to the same 1920 census mentioned above she was a single woman at that time who lived with her
mother, Sarah, and her teenage niece, the original Irene (nee O'Crowley) Craigmile in the same house. By the late 1920s, however,
a "little girl" was also living in attorney Irene's and Sarah's household according to the 1984 statement of an
aged friend of the O'Crowleys, yet to date, said little girl remains unaccounted for. Another of Amelia's pilot friends, Viola Gentry, shown seated on the original
Irene Craigmile's right in the above newspaper group photo, also knew the original Irene Craigmile in the 1930s. Again, although
the rare 1930 photo of the original Irene Craigmile with her husband and father was reprinted from an old newspaper photo,
contrast and brightness adjustments helped to make her unique facial features more identifiable. Note: It was deemed
essential for all clear photo images of the original Irene Craigmile's person to be expunged in order for Amelia Earhart--whose
1939 legal 'dead in absentia' declaration would remain in place--to acquiesce her left over identity value. This
was so she could not be photographically traced in a clear, definable way prior to the mid-1940s. [Learn more more about the original Irene Craigmile's background throughout
Irene-Amelia.com] ~~~ On Her Transition to Irene...
|
| Sans post-loss adjustments |
|
|
| 1946 |
|
Above: Hard to believe
but true; the photo on the right is dated '1946.' It was taken shortly after the former Amelia Earhart segued into a different
career in the New York banking industry. Before, when she was Amelia, she was known for her troubled sinus history
that she endured procedures to correct both before and after she became famous. One was a serious Caldwell-Luc procedure,
and it appears somewhat evident that she had some other work done after she went missing that altered her famously recognizable
visage. For instance it is conceivable a deviated septum rhinoplasty and an upper nose bridge nip-and-tuck that furrowed her
brow took place. Notice her gap-toothed look is also gone. This may seem odd to some, but there was an important
reason for these appearance adjustments. As Monsignor James Francis Kelley, a well know priest from Rumson, New Jersey who
was close to the former Amelia Earhart during her later-life years remarked: "After all she'd been through she did not
want to be Amelia Earhart anymore." Not knowing 'all she'd been through' after she went missing in 1937 and
throughout the war years, it is hard to automatically blame her for coming to feel the way she did. Recall here as well while looking at the 1946 photo, the title of Shirley Dobson
Gilroy's 1985 book, Amelia: Pilot In Pearls.
~~~
Photographic
Exactitude:
|
Amelia on the right, age 31
|
Post WWII Irene
|
Amelia, age 39, 1937
|
Post WWII Irene
|
|
Post WWII Irene + Amelia superimposed
|
Post WWII Irene + Amelia superimposed
|
|
Above: Senator Hiram Bingham with Amelia Earhart at
age 31
|
Above:
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in a mid-1970s photo portrait taken at her private development, 'Leisure World' home located in Rossmoor,
New Jersey.
|
|
Above: Amelia Earhart in 1937, age 39
|
Above:
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam on August 8, 1965 in front of the Sea Spray Inn located in East Hampton of Long Island, New York.
Photo credit, Joseph A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.)
|
Above is part of a August 1, 1967 letter from one Elmo Pickerill
to Joseph A. Gervais. Mr. Pickerill describes here how his friend, Irene (Craigmile Bolam) was a "pal" of Amelia
Earhart and Viola Gentry in the 1930s. In the preceding comparison, Irene and Amelia proved to be identical to each other.
But that wasn't true. Anymore it is forensically known that Amelia Earhart continued to survive after she went missing in
1937, and she later assumed the original Irene Craigmile's identity for her own later life use. ~~~
"Irene-Amelia.com exists as the most revealing and historically real Amelia
Earhart website on the internet." Tod Swindell
~~~ "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldous
Huxley ~~~ Legend: 1. A traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical
but unauthenticated. The 'legend'
of Amelia Earhart is that she disappeared without a trace in 1937 and she was never seen again. Fact: 1. A thing that is indisputably the
case.
The
non-promoted 'fact' is Amelia continued to survive and she eventually changed her name to Irene Craigmile in pursuit of future
privacy for both herself and those who were aware of her continued survival.
~~~ Below the following important photograph taken by Joseph A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.) on August
8, 1965 is the story of its origin:
Above: This 35MM color photograph taken in 1965
by Joseph A. Gervais displays the same 'Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam' shown in the mid-1970s black and white photo portrait
directly below. Mrs. Bolam openly described herself to have been 'a past good friend' of Amelia Earhart to Joseph A.
Gervais when the two met each other that year at a New York gathering of noteworthy pilots from the bygone era. She also commanded
a recognized air of importance among the people she knew or was acquainted with, that included high-ranking military figures
and a variety of other well-known female pilots from the 1930s' Golden Age of Aviation. The forensic analysis concluded
with absolute certainty that this particular Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam was identified nowhere as 'Irene' or
'Craigmile' or 'Bolam' prior to the mid-1940s. The analysis also shares the true origins of these three names.
To learn about the other forensically determined realities of this Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, who from 1928 to 1937 had
been famously known as Amelia Earhart, continue to examine the results here of the first in-depth evaluation of
her Twentieth Century existence.
The Bender & Altschul Quote:
"Numerous investigations foundered on official silence
in Tokyo and Washington, leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan an everlasting
mystery." 1982 quote from the voluminous
Marylin Bender, Selig Altschul 'Pan Am Airways anthology,' The Chosen Instrument
Three Irenes and the Missing Person
Case of Amelia Earhart Below, as discovered
and displayed in the analysis results, it turned out there were three different Twentieth Century women who were historically
attributed to the same "Irene Craigmile Bolam" identity:
|
1 This is the original Irene Craigmile. She and Amelia Earhart were well acquainted.
|
| Above middle: The original Irene Craigmile, 1930 |
Above on the left is the original Irene Craigmile's husband, Charles James
Craigmile, and on the right is the original Irene Craigmile's father, Richard Joseph O'Crowley.
|
| The original Irene Craigmile, 1932 |
Here the original Irene Craigmile is shown next to one of the planes she
learned to fly in. It took her several months to get her pilot's license--she was not the consistent flier that her friends,
Amelia Earhart and Viola Gentry were. Right after she was awarded her pilot's license she learned she was pregnant and eloped
to wed the father of her child to be. She was never known to fly a plane again after that. She gave birth to a son in March
of 1934, then no longer appeared in plain view. Her marriage had supposedly failed within a short time period, though a later
account described how her childbirthing process left her in a debilitated state, thus leading her infant son to be raised
by a surrogate mother figure from within her O'Crowley family fold.
What actually became of the original
Irene Craigmile is a valid question to ask. All that is known is after she stopped appearing in plain view her still-living
'identity' was given to Amelia Earhart to further use. Apparently this happened at some point during the World War Two era.
Amelia had been a good friend of the original Irene Craigmile's aunt, a prominent New York-New Jersey attorney by the name
of Irene Rutherford O'Crowley. It appears evident enough, the original Irene Craigmile's aunt had been instrumental in the
transfer of her niece's identity to Amelia.
|
2
Above, the original Irene Craigmile's 1934 born son identified
this woman to have been his 'mother' the way she looked "around 1940," although the forensic analysis made it clear
she was not his biological mother. To date, no one in the public realm knows who she really was, where she came from, or where
she ended up. There is only one known-of postulation offered by Tod Swindell that suggests how her life may have also been
intertwined with Amelia Earhart's in a family protected way. In 1984, a long ago friend of the original Irene Craigmile's
family estimated this particular 'Irene' who she referred to as "Irene Jr." was "born in 1924" and was
'raised' by the original Irene's extended family in Newark, New Jersey. As mentioned. Amelia had been a good Zonta club friend
of the original Irene Craigmile's aunt dating back to 1928, when Amelia first became famous. Below are two superimposed photos
showing the older version of the same woman, also identified by her son as the way she looked in the 1970s.
|
| Irene Craigmile, early 1940s |
|
| Irene Craigmile Bolam, 1970s |
| The two above photos superimposed... |
|
| ...display the same person in younger and older forms |
|
3 The Irene Craigmile and Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam images in this column were identified
nowhere as "Irene" prior to the mid-1940s. In 1958 this Irene Craigmile wed Englishman, Guy Bolam, the head of Radio
Luxembourg. She became known as Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam from then on, or just, 'Irene Bolam.' Whether people choose to
believe and accept it, or to not believe and accept it, this 'Irene' had been previously known as, "Amelia Earhart."
|
| Irene Craigmile, 1946 |
|
| Pre eight-years of aging & a few adjustments. |
Above: It wasn't so
hard to find Amelia again behind her Irene facade with a little photo-shop help. Tear-duct to tear-duct the eyes
above aligned perfectly with those of her former Amelia self; all facial lines and creases as well, and as you will continue
to see, necks, shoulders, heights, arm-lengths, hands, foot sizes, handwriting, etc., everything aligned perfectly. As Monsignor
Kelley described it about his late friend, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1987, who was identified nowehere as 'Irene'
prior to the mid-1940s, "After all she'd been through she didn't want to be Amelia Earhart anymore." Who are we to judge or blame her for eventually feeling that way, not knowing a thing about what she ended
up having to endure as World War Two raged on? Looking at the above images, we also recall the title of Shirley
Dobson Gilroy's 1985 book, Amelia: Pilot In Pearls.
|
| Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, 1965 |
| |
|
| Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, mid-1970s |
|
~~~
According to record,
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam, while known as "Mrs. Irene Heller," gave birth to a son in 1934. In 2006, at the office
of his attorney, and later again in 2014 in writing, Mrs. Bolam's 'son,' one Clarence "Larry" Heller, positively
identified the woman in the photographs below to have been his 'late mother' as she appeared "around 1940" and "in
the 1970s" according to Mr. Heller himself. The forensic analysis clearly displays she was not the same Mrs. Irene Craigmile
Bolam who Joseph A. Gervais met and photographed in 1965, nor was she Mr. Heller's biological mother. Originally a nanny for
him, she ended up being a surrogate imprinted as his mother when he was a young child.
|
|
|
Above: Far left and far right, younger and older versions
of the same person shown superimposed in the middle. Identified as "Irene Craigmile" on the left, and as "Irene
Craigmile Bolam" on the right, she was not the original Irene nor was she the former Amelia Earhart. Below:
1946 and 1965 images of the same person shown superimposed
in the middle. Although she had altered her famously recognizable image with some adjustments beyond what aging and style
changes normally do, the former Amelia Earhart is still forensically recognizable here.
|
| Prior to some World War Two era adjustments... |
Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1965
|
| Irene Craigmile in 1946, FKA "Earhart" |
|
...superimposed into...
|
...Amelia in 1937, her former
self.
|
Note: The forensic
analysis merely displays the truth when it comes to what became of Amelia Earhart. Although it has been consistently shouted down by pseudo Amelia Earhart 'mystery solving theorists'
over the years, to include by some who managed to make a good living by promoting non-truthful ideas
to the masses about Amelia Earhart's loss, it is important to realize how ever since the analysis results surfaced they proved
impossible to over-challenge.
|
Major Joseph A. Gervais USAF (Ret.), February 5, 2000
|
|
Above: Joseph
A. Gervais, USAF (Ret.), shown in 2000 accepting his achievement award for "Four decades of unparalleled, dedicated
research devoted to investigating the true cause and outcome of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's 1937 disappearance."
The event was held at Cesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada in front of a gathering of representatives from a variety of Aviation
connected backgrounds, to include past 99's President, Patricia Ward; 1967 successful Amelia Earhart 'World Flight' duplicator,
Ann Holtgren Pellegreno; Amelia Earhart Society President William Prymak; Executive Director of the Western Aerospace Museum,
Ronald Reuther; Overseer of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, Lou Foudray; Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam's survived in-laws,
Mr. and Mrs. John Bolam; Amelia Earhart Survived author, Colonel Rollin C. Reineck USAF (Ret.); Rear Admiral, Eugene
Tissot USN (Ret.) (whose father was a past chief mechanic for Amelia Earhart) motion picture producer/journalist Tod Swindell;
Joseph A. Gervais' wife and son, Thelma and Gerald Gervais, Amelia Earhart Lives author, Joe Klaas, and several other
distinguished individuals. At the 2000 ceremony, William Prymak spoke
of Joseph A. Gervais in the following manner: "Joseph A. Gervais is a World War Two flying hero who went on to become
widely recognized as the world's leading authority regarding the subject of Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance. A former
aircraft accident investigator, while looking into Amelia Earhart's failed world flight attempt his encounter with Mrs. Irene
Craigmile Bolam and follow-up evaluation of her life history caused an enormous shift to his angle of research."
~~~ "In
the late 1990s, after I first got into this I was amazed to learn there had never been a serious forensic evaluation of
Mrs. Bolam's full life story--or an in-depth analysis that compared her character traits and physical person to that of Amelia
Earhart. After she died in 1982, a so-called 'investigative news article series' about her ran for two weeks in an
east coast newspaper, but it proved to be a concocted effort that intertwined fact and fiction within its sordid attempt to
white-wash Mrs. Bolam's true past. The forensic analysis I orchestrated and participated in is authentic
and took over ten years to complete. Its findings, against the grain of conventional history, were astounding to say the
least. After consistently being shouted down by naysayers and non-believers over the years, the study's obvious conclusion
now speaks for itself." Tod Swindell, 2018 ~~~
| |
The article continues below. From above, it's worth
noting where the U.S. government's "official position" was described in the article, the U.S. government never
actually offered an official position or explanation pertaining to the Earhart-Noonan disappearance matter. "Most
likely they perished at sea" was the closest thing to any opinion ever offered or implied about their disappearance,
although specifically tracing it to a U.S. government source who was willing to stand by it as more than a passing comment
proved impossible to do.
|
Below: Five years
later, in 2007, right after Tod Swindell and the late Mrs. Irene Bolam's 'son,' Larry Heller executed a right to option agreement
in New York, the Arizona Republic caught wind of it. A major breakthrough had occurred when Larry Heller, at his attorney's
office in New York, identified an entirley different person to have been his late 'mother' than the Mrs. Irene Bolam who forensically
matched Amelia Earhart. Never before had people realized there was more than one person identified as the same 'Irene' with
the one who matched Amelia having surfaced in the mid-1940s from out of nowhere in the U.S., all be her with Mr. Heller's
mother's same identity applied to her. Larry Heller was born in 1934 and always maintained his mother was not
Amelia Earhart. Of course he was correct. Amelia was quite a public figure in 1934 and she certainly did not give birth
to a child that year. Yet as verified by Mr. Heller, Amelia definitely did know his biological mother in the 1930s. See more
about the "original" Irene, Mr. Heller's true mother further down.
Below is a stamp series issued by the Republic of the Marshall Islands
in 1987, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's arrival there on July 2, 1937 and Japan's
rescue of the duo. Accordingly, approximate to the time Japan picked them up, the Sino-Japanese War began on July 7, 1937,
pitting the U.S. against Japan and exacerbating the already difficult situation the world flight team found
themselves in:
| The 1987 Marshall Islands Stamp Series |
|
| Shows Earhart and Noonan's takeoff from New Guinea to their crash and retrieval at Mili Atoll |
Note: Most seriously regarded by aviation history scholars,
the 'Earhart and Noonan went down in the Marshall Islands' account initially rose to prominence in 1966,
after CBS investigative journalist, Fred Goerner published his controversial Pacific Islands findings about Amelia Earhart's
flight ending in his best-selling Doubleday book, The Search For Amelia Earhart. From 1962 to 1965, Fred Goerner made multiple trips to the Pacific region
where Earhart and Noonan went missing. He also received help and guidance from U.S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz, who had
been placed in charge of the Marshalls when the U.S. occupied them in 1944, and who verified to Goerner that the flying duo
ended up there in July of 1937.
Above: Fred Goerner's 1966 classic Earhart book remained on
the New York Times 'Best Seller' list for twelve straight weeks.
There were two different presented outcomes within the 'Marshall Islands' conveyance.
Fred Goerner's original 'Marshall Islands' ending suggested how after the duo was picked-up they
were incarcerated by Japan and later perished while in its custody. In 1970, however,
an updated version suggested that Earhart and Noonan were surreptitiously sequestered and 'kept safe' by Japan as the Sino-Japanese
War commenced, and they remained that way until their quiet liberation's took place toward the end of World War Two.
Along this vein as their individual stories continued, they changed their names and began new careers upon resurfacing
in the United States, thus enabling them to further live their lives out of the public eye. Three decades after Fred Goerner's assessment took place, author Randall Brink,
who devoted over a decade to deeply evaluating both Marshall Islands scenarios, published his best selling W.W. Norton book,
Lost Star: The Search For Amelia Earhart. Brink, whose extensive findings concurred that the duo went down in the
Marshall Islands, pragmatically left the door open to the possibility of Earhart and Noonan's private return to
the U.S., elaborating he found it hard to readily accept that Japan would have handled Amelia Earhart so recklessly since
she was a worldwide recognized 'hero' there in the 1930s, just as Babe Ruth had been.
 Above: Randall Brink's 1993 book, Lost Star: The Search For
Amelia Earhart was a best seller in England and the United States.
Below: Best selling author, Max Allan Collins, who wrote The
Road to Perdition that went on to become a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, deeply researched Amelia Earhart's
disappearance in order to write his 1998 historical novel, Flying Blind. Next to the book image find Tod Swindell's
review of Flying Blind that appeared in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
~~~ On Brutal Honesty In her 1986 autobiography, One More Time, Carol Burnett wrote of Tod
Swindell's father, newspaper journalist and author, Larry Swindell, how beyond being one of her "best friends" at
UCLA, "Larry was one of the most brilliant people I had ever met. He was always brutally honest with me, and I didn't
dare ask him what he thought of one of my performances on campus unless I really wanted to know." Consider Tod Swindell's own 'brutally honest' conveyance
about Amelia Earhart as something that emanated from 'a chip off the old block.'
 Above:
Larry Swindell, Carol Burnett, and 'Apple Annie' DeNeut in Eagle Rock, California, 1984. It was Larry Swindell who came up
with the catchphrase term, "Protecting Earhart." In the late 1990s, Carol Burnett's company, Kalola became interested
in Tod Swindell's collaboration with best-selling Amelia Earhart author, Randall Brink. Kalola travelled three representatives
to Las Vegas where Tod introduced them to famous Earhart historian, Joe Gervais, who Randall Brink knew well and had worked
with for over a decade. Ninety Nines' member, Margaret Mead was one of the Kalola reps who attended the meeting, and she soon
after found herself heading to the Marshall Islands to participate in an expedition with Joe Gervais and a few other Earhart
mystery devotees. Kalola ultimately decided the controversial nature of Amelia Earhart's old missing person case was
not a good fit for a company that generally pursued non-controversial subject matters. Carol Burnett is an iconic 'Earhart-like
figure' herself though, having blazed her own trail to become the first woman to host a prime time musical variety series
on major network television. ~~~
|
Above: A 1928 photo of Amelia Earhart. She turned thirty-one
that year. The photo shows her with Senator Hiram Bingham at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
|
Above: A rare newsprint photo of the twenty-six
year old Mrs. Irene Craigmile with her husband and father in 1930
|
The Irene-Amelia human comparison study revealed how in the
1920s and 1930s, pilot friends Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile looked nothing like each other. It also showed how eight
years after Amelia Earhart went missing and was declared 'dead in absentia,' her old friend, Irene Craigmile suddenly began
to look just like her missing friend, Amelia Earhart.
Below once again followed by more
examples from the study, is the proud looking, wings-adorned, Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam as she looked in the mid-1970s.
As mentioned she appeared nowhere identified as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s because she had been known as Amelia Earhart
before. To date the Smithsonian Institution and Amelia Earhart's family have chosen not to acknowledge the forensic analysis
results. Note: The same thing happened in the case of Charles Lindbergh with
the Smithsonian and his family--until his past alternate identity of 'Careu Kent' was confirmed in 2004.
|
|
"Special recognition goes
to Tod Swindell, who undertook an extensive, in-depth forensic analysis of the Gervais-Irene Craigmile Bolam and Amelia
Earhart to show the world they were one in the same person." USAF Colonel, Rollin C. Reineck,
reprinted from his book, Amelia Earhart Survived. Note: From 1970 to 2016, four nationally published books averred
that Amelia Earhart quietly lived-on after she went missing and in time became known as, "Irene." The two most recent
ones, to include Colonel Reineck's shown here, were published in the wake of the first ever, Irene-Amelia forensic comparison
analysis orchestrated by Tod Swindell, that wielded its incontrovertible results.
|
"Numerous
investigations foundered on official silence in Tokyo and Washington,
leaving the true fate of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan
an everlasting mystery." From Bender & Altschul's 1982 Pan Am Airways anthology,
The Chosen Instrument
|
~~~ 2019
This website and the forensic conclusion it presents are the copyrighted
intellectual properties of Amelia Earhart historian-journalist, Tod Swindell. [Protecting
Earhart MSS & Forensic Analysis by Tod Swindell, individual copyright registration #'s: TXu 1-915-926; 2014,
TXu 2-061-539; 2017] From 1996 on, Mr. Swindell endeavored
to thoroughly study the individual life stories of 1930s pilot friends, Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile. Beyond a certain
collection of knowledgeable individuals on the subject of his concern, other closely connected sources proved difficult for
him to willingly engage. No matter, the results of his long term 'forensic research' and 'human comparison study' are nothing
short of astounding. Some try to claim otherwise, but in doing so they exhibit a limited ability when it comes to recognizing
forensically learned truths. What Tod Swindell
managed to accomplish in a singlehanded way over the course of two decades--against the strong grain of conventional reality--is
as amazing as it is undeniably real. Even so, many have a hard time believing what they see here with their own eyes.
As Tod says: "That's ok, after all it reveals a startling, inconvenient historical reality for people to have to come
to terms with." ~~~
Above is a September of 1932 Akron, Ohio newspaper photo featuring
Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile with other woman pilots. Amelia, wearing a white V-neck collar is seated on the auto running
board; Irene Craigmile, who was not yet a licensed pilot then, is listed in the second row, second in from right, between
pilots Viola Gentry and Edith Foltz.
The curious thing about Irene Craigmile
is that her image changed dramatically over time, to a point where in her later life years many people wondered if she was
not the original Irene Craigmile anymore. The wondering began in 1970, after a World War Two veteran by the name
of Joseph A. Gervais, who had earlier met Irene Craigmile at a gathering of retired pilots and then researched her background,
publicly asserted his belief that she was not the original Irene Craigmile. Rather, Joseph A. Gervais offered that she was
a woman who was previously known as, 'Amelia Earhart.' Joseph A. Gervais? Here was a retired Air Force major who while serving in the Pacific region Amelia
Earhart went missing--in heard various accounts of her non-reported rescue there. Later, the recognition he sensed in 1965
followed by his background check on the woman he met then, left him offering that Amelia Earhart had somehow quietly survived
her 1937 disappearance and later took-on her old friend, Irene Craigmile's identity. As off the wall as this idea sounded, recall when Amelia Earhart went 'missing'
in her plane in 1937 she was declared "dead in absentia" after U.S. search efforts failed to locate her. In 1970, Irene Craigmile, a respected and admired person by her peers that featured
well known pilots, astronauts, and other important individuals to include Amelia Earhart's sister, Muriel Earhart Morrissey
and Senator Barry Goldwater, rejected the suggestion Joseph A. Gervais offered that said she was possibly the
somehow survived and still living, Amelia Earhart. The press and people in general didn't think she resembled what Amelia would have looked like then or
how she would have reacted had she actually been the real Amelia Earhart, so they took her word for it. Nevertheless,
her past did prove hard to cleanly define causing debates over who she really was, or used to be, to continue
on well into the next century.
|
On the right is Irene Craigmile (surname 'Bolam' added in 1958 by
marriage) appearing at the November 1970 press conference she held at the Time-Life Building in New York to refute the suggestion
that she was really Amelia Earhart. For a person nobody heard of before, it was interesting how she attended the conference
alone and handled the press like a pro. To challenge a sentence that referred to her as a "mystery woman" contained
in the newly published book, Amelia Earhart Lives (shown in the foreground of the photo to the right) she sternly told
those in attendance, "I am not a mystery woman and I am not Amelia Earhart!" After her brief deriding of the book's
contents she fielded no questions and stormed out of the room.
|
"I am not a mystery woman and I am not Amelia Earhart!"
A follow-up Time magazine article suggested she wasn't 'Irene' either.
|
A Sisterly Bond...
Let's take a deeper look at the 1970 press conference held by
Irene Craigmile, AKA "the former Amelia Earhart" and her subsequent defamation lawsuit:
Above, Irene at her press conference flanked by images
of her former self.
|
Amelia Earhart, 1935 "God, the world hounded that woman after she became famous."
A quote from famous pilot, Jackie Cochran recalling her friend, Amelia Earhart. Jackie also mentioned that during the year
Amelia was prepping for her world flight she was "closer to Amelia than anyone else, even her husband, George Putnam."
Jackie's husband, Floyd Odlum helped finance Amelia's 1937 world flight effort.
|
November, 1970, the former Amelia Earhart, AKA Irene Craigmile
(Bolam) was ready to take on the press in order to preserve her dignity and the legacy of who she used to be.
|
"I am not a mystery woman and I am not Amelia Earhart."
Irene Craigmile (Bolam) was convincing when she stated this at her press conference in response to the assertion made by former
Air Force Captain, Joseph A. Gervais, found in the book, Amelia Earhart Lives shown above in the foreground. Although
her present-tense denial was accepted then, decades later a thorough analysis of her background revealed she appeared nowhere
as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s, because she indeed had been previously known as, Amelia Earhart.
|
Above, four years after
she held her press conference, her defamation lawsuit against Amelia Earhart Lives publisher, McGraw-Hill, and separately against Joseph
A. Gervais and the book's author, Joe Klaas, was still "up in the air" as seen in this 1974 headline. Why? Because
Joseph A. Gervais was still asserting that Irene Craigmile (Bolam) might be the former Amelia Earhart living under a different,
post World War Two 'assumed' identity. (A blow-up of the 1965 photo Gervais took of her is shown in the far lower right of
the article.) Note: Irene's defamation lawsuit only cited factual errors the book contained about her post World War
Two life that she felt were damaging to her reputation; as mentioned she did not sue Gervais and Klaas for asserting she
used to be known as Amelia Earhart. When her lawsuit ended by way of a summary judgment in 1975, she paid Gervais and
Klaas ten dollars in consideration and the two men paid her the same amount. Why? She ultimately refused to submit her fingerprints
as proof-positive of her identity. It is true however, McGraw-Hill was ordered to pay her $60,000 for the 'damaging' factual
errata the book contained about her post World War Two life. (She had originally sued for $1.5 million dollars.) One will
not find this more accurate account of her defamation lawsuit by reading history books or doing conventional internet
searches.
|
Tod Swindell
Amelia
Earhart 'Aficionado Extraordinaire'
|
In 1996, the year Amelia Earhart investigative author, Randall Brink
[Lost Star, W.W. Norton, 1994] arranged for my introduction to Joseph A. Gervais, I was floored by how absolutely certain
Joseph A. Gervais still was that the Irene Craigmile (Bolam) he met and photographed in 1965 used to be known as 'Amelia Earhart.'
During our second meeting I asked Joe if anyone had ever forensically compared his 'Irene' to Amelia Earhart. I was surprised
to hear him reply, "no, not that I am aware." He added how he'd heard of some "little things" that had
been done but to the best of his knowledge no one had ever done a serious comparison. That's when I first decided
one should be done. The following year, in 1997, after hearing from a forensic specialist about the technique of superimposing
photos to match face prints, my journey began, fifteen years after Irene Craigmile Bolam's death was recorded and she was
purportedly, "cremated and burried in a common, unmarked grave," according to Rutgers University, where she had
donated her body to science. Below is the very first superimposed Irene-Amelia sample I did that year at a Kinko's using
two photos I copied directly from the 1970 Klaas/Gervais book, Amelia Earhart Lives. TS
|
Irene Craigmile (Bolam) 1965
|
Amelia Earhart, 1933
|
Irene-Amelia superimposed
|
|
|
Part of the analysis: Amelia
Earhart's 1930s pilot friend, Irene Craigmile shown in Japan in 1963, reprinted from an old newspaper photo.
|
To those of you aware of the Irene-Amelia controversy that settled
on believing this person was the original Irene Craigmile, the Swindell Study delivered incontestable advancements...
|
...concerning the unresolved since 1970, highly debated topic
of Irene Craigmile's life-long existence--that will cause you to feel otherwise.
|
|
Amelia Earhart, age 30, after her famous 'Friendship'
flight.
|
1946 photo of the Irene Craigmile who
held the 1970 press conference.
|
Below, the prominent looking,
wings adorned woman in the center was not the 'original' Irene Craigmile, but she was attributed to that same
name and identity in her later life years and claimed herself to have been a good past-friend of Amelia Earhart. Anymore it
is clear, she actually used to be Amelia Earhart.
Superimposed
Photographic Exactitude: More superimposed comparisons appear below the following images and descriptions.
"All
the admirals and generals seemed to know her." LPGA promoter, Peter Bussatti in 1982, comments about his 1970s good friend, Irene Craigmile Bolam who had
recently died. Along with many others, Mr. Bussatti had openly wondered if she used to be known as, 'Amelia Earhart.' This
photo was used in the comparison below it.
Above: Mrs. Irene Craigmile Bolam and Peter
Busatti in the 1970s.
Below: Another sample from the comprehensive, 'Irene-Amelia forensic comparison analysis.'
Above: The new Irene Craigmile (Bolam), far
left; as Amelia Earhart, far right; superimposed, center.
"Peter Busatti said he accompanied Mrs. Bolam to the Wings Club in New
York City on one occasion. He said a full length portrait of Amelia Earhart hangs in the room dedicated
in her honor. ""It was a dead ringer for Irene,"" he said. ""Sometimes
I thought she was [the former Amelia Earhart], sometimes I thought she wasn't. Once when I asked her directly she replied,
"When I die you'll find out."" At a Wings Club event in Washington, Busatti mentioned
that all the admirals and generals seemed to know her." Excerpted from a 1982 Woodbridge New Jersey
News Tribune article.
|
Tod Swindell
|
"The original Irene
Craigmile barely flew at all during her oft-troubled 1930s years. Compared to her friend, Amelia, she was a veritable nobody
back then as well. It would have been unrealistic for her to later become a member of the affluent New York Wings Club, let
alone be distinguished like royalty there among her peers. Yet, important people who knew the post-World War Two Irene Craigmile
as the former Amelia Earhart, and indeed the were some who did, were always respectful to recognize her that way."
Tod Swindell
|
From the document examination portion of
the forensic study, here is part of the same statement shown above issued by the new Irene Craigmile (Bolam), displayed
here in her own cursive handwriting. Amelia's own high school, 'Amelia M. Earhart' cursive signature is inserted under
it for comparison. (Amelia's middle name was 'Mary.') She referenced two life-long friends of hers; early
pilots, Viola Gentry and Elmo Pickerill, who, according to her own words, also knew her as, "Amelia Earhart." She mailed her handwritten
reply to retired USAF Major, Joseph A. Gervais, who had met her face to face two years earlier. The confounded Major Gervais,
who felt he recignized her for who she used to be at the time they met each other at a gathering of well known pilots from
the past, had written her to politely ask if she used to be known as Amelia Earhart(?) This comparison alignment is relatively new information.
The overall study features a more thorough handwriting comparison analysis.
|
|
