Amelia Earhart
Renowned U.S. pilot Amelia Earhart is pictured in this 1928 photograph released on March 20, 2012. Scientists on March 20, 2012 announced a new search to resolve the disappearance of Earhart, saying fresh evidence from a remote Pacific island may reveal the fate of Earhart, who vanished in 1937 while attempting to circle the globe. Reuters/Library of Congress/Handout

Claims that pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart had survived her final flight and ended up a Japanese captive almost broke the internet, earning mixed reactions from people across the globe. A photograph discovered in the US national archives allegedly showed Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan standing at a harbour on Marshall Islands.

However, the claim was discredited by a Tokyo-based blogger, who unearthed the same image in the archives of the National Diet Library, the national library of Japan. The photograph was said to be part of a Japanese-language travelogue in relation to the South Seas.

The book, as stated in page 113, was published in Japanese-held Palau on October 1935. That was two years before Earhart and her navigator were last seen. There is a caption beneath the image of the photograph, but it did not mention the identities of the people in it.

What happened to Amelia Earhart

Military history blogger Kota Yamano said he never believed claims that Earhart ended up a Japanese captive so he opted to find it out for himself. He told the The Guardian Australia that the same photo must be on record in Japan.

In July 1937, Earhart and Noonan took off twin-engine Lockheed Electra from Papua New Guinea en route to Howland Island. No one has seen them since then. Some believe Earhart’s plane crashed and sank into the ocean, but there are theories she actually lived longer.

The Marshall Island theory has been around since the 1960s. Some of the residents of the islands claimed they witnessed the aircraft land and saw Earhart and Noonan in Japanese custody. But executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery Ric Gillespie stated that there is no proof the woman in the image was Earhart.

Trained dogs have searched a remote Pacific island for traces of the missing aviator. They were taken to a part of the Republic of Kiribati by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) and the National Geographic Society.

TIGHAR researchers said they have heard about the Marshall Island theory but have discounted such for several reasons. The woman identified as Earhart in the photograph has hair much longer than when she took off her final flight.

Former FBI Executive Assistant Director Sawn Henry stressed there is no proof Earhart did not survive her last flight. "We have no evidence anywhere that she crashed into the ocean, even though that's been the common narrative for so many years,” Bustle quotes him as saying.

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