Earhart's Plane Found?!

You sir get bacon!

+6 points for using Opus.

Opus is as they say 'da bomb' always loved that strip!

The latest news.
The Castaway of Gardner Island

Just read it all the way through, nd then realised this was written in 1997 !!!

Yep, old new news! Ha say that 5 times quickly!

Just thought I'd keep this thread alive, much like the ridiculous theories surrounding AE's disappearance.

Based on the title of the thread, not much worry about finding her but everyone seems to want the damn plane. Pretty sure she had not paid it off and Ford Motor Credit wants their plane back.

Robert Porter said:

Based on the title of the thread, not much worry about finding her but everyone seems to want the damn plane. Pretty sure she had not paid it off and Ford Motor Credit wants their plane back.

Click to expand...

Could be, or the Puppeteers want their General Products built fuselage returned...

Oooo! Ringworld! Hah! Knew I liked you for a reason!

Ringworld = Great Reading.

The History Channel July 9th

Les Kinney, a retired government investigator who has spent 15 years looking for Earhart clues, said the photo, taken by someone believed to be spying on the Japanese military for the U.S., "clearly indicates that Earhart was captured by the Japanese." The photo was discovered in what was once a top secret file in the National Archives. Independent analysts have told History the photo appears to be legitimate.

The photo, marked "Jaluit Atoll" and believed to have been taken in 1937, shows a short-haired woman -- potentially Earhart -- on a dock with her back to the camera. (She's wearing pants, something for which Earhart was known.) She sits near a standing man who looks like Noonan.

The Japanese ship, the Koshu, was photographed towing something that appears to be a plane that has the same measurements as Earhart's. NBC's "Today" show reported that locals at the time said that they saw the plane crash and that the Koshu picked up both the flyers and the plane.

The photo would confirm a popular theory stating Earhart and Noonan survived the crash and were held prisoner by the Japanese on the island of Saipan, where they both eventually died.

Japan's Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and National Archives told NBC News they have no documents of Earhart being in their custody. However, many records from that time were destroyed during or after World War II.

The Koshu was in service of Korea-Japan route as a cargo ship from November 1932 to March 1944.
Sunken by the U.S. air attack as an IJN requisition ship in the East China Sea on March 24, 1945.

Through Vincent V. Loomis 1981 research in Tokyo, which was later supported by Fukiko Aoki, we know that the Japanese survey ship Koshu, which wasn't a part of the 12th Squadron, was anchored in Ponape on July 2, 1937, and at 5 p.m., July 6, Lieutenant Yukinao Kozu, the ship's radioman, logged the official order for the ship to depart Ponape for the Marshalls to join the Earhart search. Koshu was steaming for Jaluit on July 9, arriving there just after noon July 13. "That night she took on coal," Loomis wrote. "One of those loading the fuel was Tomaki Mayazo, who heard the crew members excitedly mention they were on the way to pick up two American fliers and their aircraft, which had crashed at Mili. The next day the ship steamed out of Jaluit for Mili Mili, where it picked up both the Electra and its crew."
The photo, which Kinney believes must have been taken before 1943, shows a ship towing a barge with an airplane on the back with several people on a nearby dock. Two independent analyses by Doug Carner and Kent Gibson said the photo appears to be legitimate, according to People. Carner determined it had not been altered, and Gibson, who specializes in facial recognition, said it's likely the individuals are Earhart and Noonan. They both recognized the ship in the photo as Koshu Maru, a Japanese military vessel said to have captured the duo after their crash.

Research facts by yourself and say with your own words, Mike.
The Koshu (杭州丸 Koshu Maru) was a civilian cargo ship until March 1944.

Who is Fukiko Aoki, by the way ?
Fukiko Aoki I knew was a left-wing journalist and a daughter of communist.

Shinpachi, various sources various spellings, various descriptions depending on whose book you are reading:
In "East to the Dawn" by Susan Butler, she tells of a Japanese journalist named Fukiko Aoki (she later became bureau chief for the Japanese version of Newsweek) who, in 1981, wanted to find out about the rumors that said Amelia Earhart had been executed in Saipan.
In her search, she interviewed Kozu Yukinao who had served as communications officer on the ship Koshu, which is believed to have been involved in finding Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. She also saw copies of the log for that ship. She made notes of the dates and places where the ship had been.
She stated that the Koshu received orders to help in the search for the missing plane.

The Japanese navy's 2,080-ton survey ship Koshu almost certainly picked up Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan from their landfall near Mili's Barre Island, took the pair to Jaluit, where Bilimon Amaron tended to Noonan's wounded knee, and carried the Earhart Electra to Saipan, where it was discovered by American forces in June 1944.

For his bookAmelia Earhart : The Final Story, Vince Loomis went to considerable efforts to dig out the records of what Japanese ships were in the Marshalls in July 1937. He was trying to figure our what ship his star witness, Bilimon Amaron, had seen carrying the Earhart Electra on its aft deck. The only ship Loomis could come up with anywhere near the Marshalls was the seaplane tenderKoshu. She was in Ponape, about 400 miles west of the Marshalls, on July 2, 1937 and arrived in Jaluit in the Marshalls on July 13. Loomis says Koshu then left Jaluit but returned sometime before July 19 when she sailed for Truk and eventually Saipan. It is between its departure from and return from Jaluit that he says the ship picked up Earhart, Noonan and the plane at Mili Atoll in the southern Marshalls.

The Koshu was doing oceanographic surveys, and based upon their reports, one can deduce from their speed and departure date to have arrived in the Marshalls (Jaluit) no earlier than July 9th. Official correspondence between the US Navy and State Dept. and Japanese officials at that time acknowledge only theKoshu in assisting in the survey for AE wreckage.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin has an AP release dated 6 Jul 37 from New York; in sum, Japanese officials report that the " 2100 ton survey ship Kooshu" is searching in the Marshall Islands. In the main article the spelling is "Koshu", so probably an extra "o" typo. Also the Japanese were searching in "other areas near Howland".

This is probably independent corroboration of the Koshu's status. Fukiko Aoki, Japanese author, writes inSearching for Amelia Earhart in 1984 that there were two Japanese ships in the area. The "battleship Koshu" and the carrier Kamoi. According to her, she reviewed the logs of the Koshu which reflect the dates and places reported. The Koshu left Jaluit on 19 Jul 37 headed to Saipan.

From: U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings; Pt. 35, the Clausen Investigation, pp. 52-62.
Fourth Fleet: Survey and Patrol Division: Koshu

The Japanese navy's 2,080-ton survey ship Koshu almost certainly picked up Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan from their landfall near Mili's Barre Island, took the pair to Jaluit, where Bilimon Amaron tended to Noonan's wounded knee, and carried the Earhart Electra to Saipan, where it was discovered by American forces in June 1944.

Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki, wife of American writer Pete Hamill. Aoki told Fred Goerner she wanted to help him in his Earhart investigations in the early 1980s

I might not be interested in the Earhart mystery so much as you are, Mike, but -

Does this ship look the Koshu ?


This is the Koshu and she was not in the Pacific in 1937.


Also, can anyone find out Earhart and Noonan in this picture ?
I can't tell even who are Europeans or Asians exactly.

Yes, she is Fukiko Aoki I knew.
She was a left-wing activist.

Shinpachi, At this point it is certainly a very intriguing possibility. As to the ship, they look the same to me and other who know more than I ever will have determined that it is the Koshu. The theory that the Japanese military could be responsible for the disappearance of the two aviators – who they "may have believed were American spies," has been floating around for decades.

But it's the discovery of a black-and-white photograph – unearthed by retired U.S. Treasury Agent Les Kinney in 2012 and revealed for the first time in the documentary – that suddenly makes the theory more plausible, adds the former FBI boss. A longtime Earhart buff who has spent thousands of hours combing through government records, Kinney discovered the photo in a "formerly top secret" file in the National Archives.
"It was misfiled," he tells Henry in the documentary, referring to the photo which depicts two blurry images on a dock believed to be Noonan and Earhart – who stares out at a nearby ship with her back turned to the camera. "That's the only reason I was able to find it."

By the time Earhart embarked on her around-the-world flight, the Japanese controlled many of the islands in the South Pacific that she and Noonan were flying on this final leg of their adventure.


Kinney insists that any document that directly refers to Earhart as a Japanese prisoner was long ago "purged" from official files to hide the fact that the government knew Earhart was a prisoner and did nothing about it, including one report that totaled more than 130 pages.
Kinney's undated photograph came from an Office Of Naval Intelligence file, he says, and was meticulously examined and evaluated by two of the nation's top forensic photo analysts, using extensive recognition and proportional comparison technology.

"I can say with more than 99.7 percent confidence that the photo is authentic and untouched," explains digital forensic analyst Doug Carner.

Facial recognition expert Kent Gibson, who compared known images of Noonan and Earhart with the individuals photographed on the dock, believes it's "likely" they are the two lost aviators. The recognition software matched Noonan's "Widow's Peak" hair line, prominent nose, and eye brow ridge almost perfectly

"There's nothing that points me in another direction," says Gibson, who adds that the figure believed to be Earhart has the "same prominent, athletic shoulders as Amelia" and the same "short, bobbed hair and is wearing pants, unusual for women at that time"

After her disappearance, the government launched what at the time became the largest ever sea and air search. American vessels, however, weren't allowed into the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands.

No trace of the flyers or their plane was ever found.

Days after their alleged crash landing, Henry believes Earhart and Noonan, along with their plane, were picked up by the Japanese military and taken roughly 200 miles to Jaluit Island, where Kinney's photograph — which contains the caption: "MARSHALL ISLANDS, JALUIT ATOLL, JALUIT ISLAND. JALUIT HARBOR." — was later snapped on the dock.

Forensic analyst Carner identified the ship that the individual presumed to be Earhart appears to be staring at as the Koshu Maru, a Japanese cargo ship.

Behind the ship on a barge is an object resembling an airplane that Gibson calculated to be 38 feet long. Records show that Earhart's Lockheed Electra measured 38.7 feet long.

The Koshu Maru is believed to have transported the flyers nearly 2,000 miles to the island of Saipan.
It is not clear why the U.S. government might want to cover up what happened to Amelia," he says.

"If in fact she was spying on the Japanese, the government may not have wanted the American public to know they put 'America's sweetheart' in that situation and she was captured."

Amazing story like the Nazi base on the moon, Mike !