In 1970, author Joe Klaas published a book titled Amelia Earhart Lives. His version of the story went as follows: Earhart was a secret spy for the US government. Her plane was shot down by the Japanese and she was captured on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands. She later managed to return to the US under the false name Irene Bolam.
Could this be true?
- Klaas was not the only one who thought Earhart was an American spy who was taken prisoner by the Japanese. Books such as Amelia Earhart Survived by Col. Rollin C. Reineck, as well as documentaries made by the History Channel, all said the same thing.
- A so-called new photograph surfaced that seemed to show Earhart and Noonan, alive and well on Jaluit Atoll, supposedly hours or days before they were captured by the Japanese.
These claims, however, were quickly debunked. Irene Bolam, the woman thought to be Amelia Earhart, sued Klaas for his book. She stated that she had evidence that she was not Earhart. And after digging around in Japan’s national library, a Japanese blogger discovered that the so-called “new” photograph was not actually new. It had been published in a Japanese travelogue years before Earhart had gone missing.
And of course, the war with Japan would not happen until 1941… nearly 4 years after Earhart’s crash.
But of course, we have no evidence that Earhart was not a spy, either.
Sources: CNN, TIGHAR, Time Magazine