Amelia Earheart's name has been marked in history as a lady pilot who tried to fly around the world but mysteriously disappeared without a trace mid-flight. Many believed that her plane crashed and that her body fell either in the deep ocean or in an uninhabited, lush forest. Different theories have also been popping here and there about Amelia Earheart's disappearance, but none of them were really proven. However, there's a new development in the Plane crash mystery as a new photo has been discovered showing the lady pilot and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on a dock.
The two pilots were photographed with a group of natives who were hanging out on the said dock.
According to NBC News, Amelia Earheart's plane may have experienced some engine trouble but she and Fred Noonan managed to survive the plane crash and landed on the Marshall Islands.
Legitimate and undoctored
The newly discovered photo of Amelia Earheart and Fred Noonan was found in one of the files hidden in the National Archives. As expected, a lot of independent analysts have tried to analyze the legitimacy of the photo and they all have a common observation upon close examination of the photo - it is legitimate and undoctored.
According to NBC News, Shawn Henry, a former executive assistant director of the FBI, also confirmed the authenticity of the photo.
In fact, Shawn Henry is confident that it's really Earheart and Noonan in the photo.
What does the newly unearthed photo mean?
With a legit piece of evidence showing Amelia Earheart and Fred Noonan alive and well, it clearly meant that they survived the plane crash and landed somewhere in the Marshall Islands. Other details of the photos also reveal a big boat dragging along what seems to be a distorted twist of metal that is suspected to be the remnants of the damaged plane of Earheart and Noonan.
The photo may have answered some questions about the female pilot's mysterious disappearance but there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered. For one, it's still not determined how Amelia Earheart died or when she died. However, it seems like one of the most popular narratives about the lady pilot- the one that involves her being a captive of the Japanese government because she was suspected to be a spy, might be the closest to the truth.
The photograph is considered to play a pivotal role in the case of Amelia Earheart's disappearance and historians believe that it is a total game changer. History Channel will be featuring a special episode on Sunday entitled "Amelia Earheart: The Lost Evidence."
