gaia227
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping an
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I also tend to go with the Nikumaroro theory. The discovery's they have found there are pretty convincing. In 2007, TIGHAR went back and found a lighter, a zipper and snaps, and most intriguing an AMERICAN pocket knife.
The cover-up, sealed documents, etc that ensued suggest to me not some top secret mission but rather the Coast Guard trying to protect themselves from the mistakes which were made that day. The incidences of mis-communication are amazing. The Itasca broadcasting on the wrong frequency, using morse code when Amelia made it clear she didn't know morse code, etc.
Eventhough I find Nikumaroro the most compelling I can't ignore the 'eye-witness' accounts that came out of the Marshall Island, Saipan and other locales in Japan. As we know, eye-witness accounts are not the most reliable but these people obviously saw people they believed could be Earhart and Noonan. They can't all be lying. But, of course, they could all be mistaken.
Is it possible they landed at Nikumaroro, were there for a few days and then picked up by the Japanese? I know Niku was Britain's territory and it seems a little out of the way but......
From http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0299.shtml - much longer article but I have just included the part about them possibly being taken prisoner.
Other evidence that Earhart and Noonan ended up as Japanese prisoners comes from residents of various islands administered by Japan and US servicemen who served in the Pacific during the war. Many researchers have maintained that if Earhart could not find Howland Island, a contingency plan was to fly northwest to the Marshall Islands held by Japan. Natives of the Marshalls and the island of Saipan in the Marianas much further west have told tales of two American aviators, a man and a woman, being held there around 1937 to 1939. While it is virtually impossible the Electra could have flown all the way to Saipan, it is conceivable that Earhart and Noonan landed on or near the Marshalls and were brought to Saipan.
One of the most popular of these theories claims the Electra crash-landed at the Mili Atoll where, after several days, its crew was picked up by a Japanese fishing boat. The flyers were then taken to another island, probably Jaluit, where Noonan received medical treatment for cuts received in the crash. The two were moved again to Kwajalein and ultimately imprisoned at Saipan. In 1960, a woman named Josephine Akiyama who had lived on Saipan came forward suggesting she had seen two Americans being held on the island in 1937. Four other native women also told stories of a thin foreign woman with short hair cut like that of a man who was on Saipan around the time. They said the woman had been a pilot who was captured spying after her plane crashed to the south. Additionally, some of the women remembered excitement about an aircraft with a broken wing being transported aboard a Japanese ship. The natives also said the foreigner was kept under guard and looked sickly. They went on to suggest that the woman was either killed or died of illness and was buried on the island.
These stories caught the interest of a CBS Radio correspondent named Fred Goerner who traveled to Saipan in the 1960s looking for evidence to solve the Earhart mystery. While some 50 residents claimed to remember two American aviators, no official documentation of their presence could be located. Goerner hired divers to search Saipan's harbor for aircraft wreckage, and although some was found, it was from a Japanese plane and not the Electra. Goerner also looked into rumors from a US serviceman who said he was shown graves of the two flyers while stationed on Saipan in 1945. Although bodies were uncovered, they did not match those of Earhart or Noonan. Another US soldier who served on the island even claimed that he watched as fellow Americans destroyed a Lockheed Electra stored in a Japanese hanger at Saipan's airfield. Perhaps Goerner's most extreme contention is that US servicemen recovered the pair's bodies which may still be in the possession of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He also maintained that some of his theories were confirmed by no less than Admiral Chester Nimitz who commanded the US Pacific Fleet during the war. Despite the lack of success finding compelling evidence placing Earhart and Noonan on these islands, at least ten other expeditions to the Marshalls and Marianas have continued to seek clues to the fate of the famous flyers. One of the most recent was to the island of Tinian just south of Saipan. A US Marine named Saint John Naftel who was stationed on the island in 1945 says he was shown two graves where the Japanese had supposedly executed and buried Earhart and Noonan. Archaeologist Jennings Bunn tested the theory by organizing an excavation of the site, but no remains of any kind were found. Additional excavations have been conducted elsewhere on Saipan near locations where rumors suggest the aviators were held, but no trace of their remains have been found. Still other rumors place the pair on the island of Truk (now called Chuuk) or at a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines, China, or mainland Japan.
The cover-up, sealed documents, etc that ensued suggest to me not some top secret mission but rather the Coast Guard trying to protect themselves from the mistakes which were made that day. The incidences of mis-communication are amazing. The Itasca broadcasting on the wrong frequency, using morse code when Amelia made it clear she didn't know morse code, etc.
Eventhough I find Nikumaroro the most compelling I can't ignore the 'eye-witness' accounts that came out of the Marshall Island, Saipan and other locales in Japan. As we know, eye-witness accounts are not the most reliable but these people obviously saw people they believed could be Earhart and Noonan. They can't all be lying. But, of course, they could all be mistaken.
Is it possible they landed at Nikumaroro, were there for a few days and then picked up by the Japanese? I know Niku was Britain's territory and it seems a little out of the way but......
From http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0299.shtml - much longer article but I have just included the part about them possibly being taken prisoner.
Other evidence that Earhart and Noonan ended up as Japanese prisoners comes from residents of various islands administered by Japan and US servicemen who served in the Pacific during the war. Many researchers have maintained that if Earhart could not find Howland Island, a contingency plan was to fly northwest to the Marshall Islands held by Japan. Natives of the Marshalls and the island of Saipan in the Marianas much further west have told tales of two American aviators, a man and a woman, being held there around 1937 to 1939. While it is virtually impossible the Electra could have flown all the way to Saipan, it is conceivable that Earhart and Noonan landed on or near the Marshalls and were brought to Saipan.
One of the most popular of these theories claims the Electra crash-landed at the Mili Atoll where, after several days, its crew was picked up by a Japanese fishing boat. The flyers were then taken to another island, probably Jaluit, where Noonan received medical treatment for cuts received in the crash. The two were moved again to Kwajalein and ultimately imprisoned at Saipan. In 1960, a woman named Josephine Akiyama who had lived on Saipan came forward suggesting she had seen two Americans being held on the island in 1937. Four other native women also told stories of a thin foreign woman with short hair cut like that of a man who was on Saipan around the time. They said the woman had been a pilot who was captured spying after her plane crashed to the south. Additionally, some of the women remembered excitement about an aircraft with a broken wing being transported aboard a Japanese ship. The natives also said the foreigner was kept under guard and looked sickly. They went on to suggest that the woman was either killed or died of illness and was buried on the island.
These stories caught the interest of a CBS Radio correspondent named Fred Goerner who traveled to Saipan in the 1960s looking for evidence to solve the Earhart mystery. While some 50 residents claimed to remember two American aviators, no official documentation of their presence could be located. Goerner hired divers to search Saipan's harbor for aircraft wreckage, and although some was found, it was from a Japanese plane and not the Electra. Goerner also looked into rumors from a US serviceman who said he was shown graves of the two flyers while stationed on Saipan in 1945. Although bodies were uncovered, they did not match those of Earhart or Noonan. Another US soldier who served on the island even claimed that he watched as fellow Americans destroyed a Lockheed Electra stored in a Japanese hanger at Saipan's airfield. Perhaps Goerner's most extreme contention is that US servicemen recovered the pair's bodies which may still be in the possession of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He also maintained that some of his theories were confirmed by no less than Admiral Chester Nimitz who commanded the US Pacific Fleet during the war. Despite the lack of success finding compelling evidence placing Earhart and Noonan on these islands, at least ten other expeditions to the Marshalls and Marianas have continued to seek clues to the fate of the famous flyers. One of the most recent was to the island of Tinian just south of Saipan. A US Marine named Saint John Naftel who was stationed on the island in 1945 says he was shown two graves where the Japanese had supposedly executed and buried Earhart and Noonan. Archaeologist Jennings Bunn tested the theory by organizing an excavation of the site, but no remains of any kind were found. Additional excavations have been conducted elsewhere on Saipan near locations where rumors suggest the aviators were held, but no trace of their remains have been found. Still other rumors place the pair on the island of Truk (now called Chuuk) or at a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines, China, or mainland Japan.
