Yesterday was a big day for news regarding long-time lost aviator Amelia Earhart.  For those who aren’t aware of who she is, she was an aviator who achieved great acclaim during an era when flying was just (ahem) taking off.  In 1937 she and navigator Fred Noonan embarked on what would have been the first attempt by a woman to circumnavigate the world.

However, while flying over the Pacific ocean and near the Marshal Islands and with fuel running low, a series of distress signals were sent out and Ms. Earhart, Mr. Noonan, and their airplane were never seen again.

What happened to them, to this day, remains a mystery.

But yesterday it was announced a new History Channel special will focus on this mystery and, the big “new” piece of information the special is offering is a photograph which the show’s people claim displays both Earhart and Noonan on a dock in a Pacific Island after they crash landed and following them declared “missing”.

The photograph:

Not all that interesting, until you zoom in on two of the people near the end of the dock…

The show’s principles claim the man on the left is Noonan and the figure seated and looking off to the right is Amelia Earhart and, according to their claims, this has been at least potentially validated through the use of photographic analysis (by the way, the article where I got these photographs is by Paige Levin and Eric Levinson and found on CNN.com  You can read the entire article here).

So here’s the deal: At the time of Earhart’s disappearance, things were getting worse between Japan and the U.S., so there is a theory that maybe Earhart and Noonan crash landed in the Pacific, were picked up by Japanese naval forces, and eventually were imprisoned and died…perhaps being executed as spies for the U.S. government.

The above photograph, reportedly taken surreptitiously by a U.S. contact who eventually was executed as a spy by the Japanese, most certainly could be proof of the survival of Earhart and Noonan and the fact that it was held in a “top secret” folder for many years seems to indicate that it was viewed as something important.

However, I suspect it was important not because of the vague figures on it but rather the Japanese vessel in the background.  I suspect that was what the photographer wanted to get, to give U.S. intelligence an idea of where Japanese vessels were rather than take a very hard to see picture of two lost aviators.

On the other hand, the photographic analysis appears to be interesting, even if the photo itself, when blown up, presents only blurry images of the people within.

Still, a fascinating thing to see and discuss, even if I do believe this is far from a slam dunk revelation.

The below video, from the Today show, gives a bit more information on the photograph and how it was determined the two within it could be the lost aviators…

1/1/17 UPDATE!

Over at Gizmodo.com Matt Novak offers this article which claims…

Experts cast doubt on that new photo alleged to show Amelia Earhart

The main gist of the article, for those who aren’t interested in following the link (but you should, it presents some neat photos of the actual photograph!), is that there is a big question as to when the photograph stirring up all this intrigue was taken.

The fact of the matter is that its unknown when it was taken.  The History Channel people claim it was taken in 1937, which would be in/around the time of Ms. Earhart’s disappearance, but it was noted by the National Archives there is no date on the photograph and its description doesn’t give any indication of when it might have been taken.

It is possible the photograph was taken in 1940, which of course would damage the claims it shows Ms. Earhart.

As I said before, I’m a skeptic of this.  It just seems a little too… lucky to have such a picture suddenly appear and show not only Earhart but her Mr. Noonan.