Frequently Asked Questions From the Earhart Forum

1. What does “Love to Mother” mean? (The Weihsein Telegram)
2. What is Occam’s Razor and how does it apply to the Earhart Search?
3. How do I access the Forum Archives?

1. What is the best biography of Amelia Earhart?
2. Was Amelia Earhart a good pilot?
3. Did Amelia have a contingency plan if she couldn’t find Howland Island?

1. Was Fred Noonan an alcoholic?

The Aircraft

1. What are the specs of the aircraft?
2. How much fuel was aboard the Electra when Earhart and Noonan left Lae, New Guinea?
3. Would the Electra float?
4. How many Electras are left in the world?

Navigation

1. How did Noonan navigate?
2. What is the significance of Earhart’s statement “We are on the line 157/337”?
3. What is “Offset Navigation”?

The Flight

1. What was the route of the flight?
2. Didn’t Amelia say she was flying in an overcast?
3. How believable are the reported post-disappearance radio signals from the lost flight?
4. How accurate were the newspaper accounts in 1937?

The Coast Guard’s Role

1. Wasn’t the Itasca making smoke for Earhart to see?

The Navy’s Role

1. Why didn’t the Navy put searchers ashore on Nikumaroro in 1937?
2. Why didn’t the Navy pilots land at Gardner Island, since the report says the lagoon is deep enough and big enough, and Lambrecht landed at Hull?
3. What did the Navy searchers see when they flew over Nikumaroro in 1937?
4. How long did the three aircraft from the battleship Colorado spend over Gardner Island on July 9, 1937?

Nikumaroro

1. What was the first real clue TIGHAR had that Earhart and Noonan may have reached Nikumaroro?
2. Where does TIGHAR think the airplane was landed?
3. How hard would it be to land an Electra on the reef at Nikumaroro?
4. What may have happened to the plane after it landed at Nikumaroro?
5. Is it possible to know what the tide was like at Nikumaroro when Earhart may have arrived there?
6. How much is known about the shipwreck at Nikumaroro?
7. If the Electra was on the reef at Gardner Island when the search planes from the battleship Colorado flew over the island a week later, why didn’t they see it?
8. Why wasn’t the Electra found when a British exploratory expedition visited Gardner Island in October 1937, just three months after the Earhart disappearance?
9. Why wasn’t the Electra found when a six-man survey party from New Zealand spent two months on the island in December 1938/January 1939?
10. Why wasn’t the Electra found when a U.S. Navy survey party from U.S.S. Bushnell spent a week mapping the island in November 1939?

Alternative Theories

1. Isn’t it more logical that the Electra simply ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean?
2. Isn’t it possible that Earhart could have been captured by the Japanese?
3. A letter supposedly written by Fred Noonan was recently found in a bottle and has been publicized as the “Noonan Document.” Is it authentic?
4. How does TIGHAR’s theory differ from that advanced by Elgen Long?
5. Does a transcript of a high-level U.S. Government phone call from 1938 prove that Earhart was a spy?
6. Isn’t there a photo of Earhart’s plane in Japanese custody?

Artifacts

1. Have any items of clothing been found?
2. If bones are found, can they be conclusively identified?
3. Could the baby in the grave be Amelia Earhart’s?