Every now and then, there is a new Amelia Earhart claim that raises more than a few eyebrows. This month, the claim is that she was spying on Japan and was kept a prisoner until 1945.
The claim comes from author W.C. Jameson, who told The Daily Mail that Earhart was on a secret spying mission for the U.S. government and it was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She carried special cameras to take pictures of the Japanese military bases in the Pacific Ocean.
Jameson claims that she came down in the Marshall Islands in 1937 and buried a box of evidence in the sand before the Japanese captured her and co-pilot Fred Noonan. Earhart then lived as a Japanese prisoner of war for the rest of World War II. After the war, she took a new identity because she wanted to ditch the notoriety attached to her real name.
“Amelia Earhart was involved in a covert government-endorsed and government-sponsored operation wherein the objective was to take photographs of real and potential Japanese military installations on one or more of the mandated islands in the Pacific Ocean,” Jameson writes in his book. “This information was kept from the American public.”
He claims that Earhart was the unidentified woman dressed as a nun who was rescued from a Japanese prison camp in Northern China in August 1945.
Jameson’s book is called Amelia Earhart: Beyond the Grave and was written with Gregory A. Feith. Jameson didn’t tell the Daily Mail what Noonan’s fate was, so you’ll probably have to get the book to find out.
Jameson’s claims are not new. Many have suggested that she was spying on the Japanese, although the Earhart Project has called this a myth and there is no evidence to back it up.
Others have thought they figured out what happened to Earhart, but what happened to her is still a mystery. Earlier this year, there was also rare footage of Earhart that surfaced, which also wasn’t without some controversy.