SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR LOST FLIGHT GROUP (LFG) CONTRIBUTORS:
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CAROL LINN DOW |
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Screenwriter Carol Linn Dow started her career as the editor-publisher of a stock market magazine called The Dow Digest. In its day, Dow Digest left a lasting impression on the moguls of Wall Street and was famous for innovative concepts some of which are used, extensively, in today's world of high finance. Tiring of writing stock market stories, Ms. Dow sold the magazine and began studying screenwriting. The subject matter she picked was Amelia Earhart. As a licensed pilot and well acquainted with her own V-tail Beech Bonanza, Carol became fast friends with Amelia Earhart's sister, Muriel Earhart Morrissey. She felt the Amelia Earhart story had all the elements a screenwriter needed to produce a great motion picture. To top it all off, the so-called "experts" on the subject matter were, for the most part, practicing the subtle art of "quackery" (in her opinion) on the ultimate fate of Amelia Earhart. Buoyed by researchers from the Lost Flight Group such as Paul Rafford, Mike Campbell, Ron Bright, Alex Mandel, Lily Gelb, Cam Warren, and others Carol wrote the screenplay for "The Lost Flight of Amelia Earhart."
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YANKEE CLIPPER |
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PAUL RAFFORD JR. |
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BERMUDA CLIPPER |
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The best Earhart radio and electronics researcher, according to screenwriter Carol Dow, is Paul Rafford, Jr. Rafford was a navigator-radio operator for Pan American World Airways in the 1940s. It was Paul Rafford's explanation of the loss of radio contact with the Earhart airplane that offered a solution to the Earhart riddle... a complete cessation of radio contact followed by mysterious call messages later that night. Paul's experience in navigating with the World War II Japanese radio station at Jaluit, the Marshall Islands, gave The Lost Flight the final answers to what appears to be the final solution to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. In the world of electronics as it existed in the 1930s, there was a problem with radio Dynamotors that could blow a fuse from overuse. Rafford himself, flying the Pacific, had experienced the effects and the problems they posed. Quite literally, there is no other explanation for the post-loss broadcasts that were received later that night.
During his career he flew missions with the Bermuda Clipper and the Yankee Clipper, and three weeks after Pearl Harbor he rushed a General and his staff, plus thirty thousand rounds of ammunition to Calcutta to support the Flying Tigers. He joined Earhart’s route at San Juan and followed it fairly closely until turning around at Calcutta. In 1946 he was based in Paris to set up Pan Am’s European communications network, and later teamed up with Pan Am’s Chief Navigator in flight testing all new navigation systems. In 1963 Rafford was transferred to Cape Canaveral as a Communications Manager in support of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Manned Spaceflight Programs at Mission Control. He retired from Pan Am in 1988 after 48 years of service.
Sadly we lost Paul on December 10, 2016. He was a fine and decent man, admired and respected by his peers, and loved by many. He made many significant contributions to the Earhart saga, and he will be missed. May he Rest in Peace.
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RAFFORD STRATOCRUISER RADIOS 1955 |
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MIKE CAMPBELL |
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MIKE CAMPBELL
A longtime, award-winning active-duty and civilian Navy journalist, Mike Campbell is currently a public affairs specialist. Since meeting Thomas E. Devine, author of EYEWITNESS: The Amelia Earhart Incident (almost 20 years ago) he has worked against impossible odds to expose the continuing U.S. government and media cover-up of the truth in the last great mystery of the 20th century.
His first book, With Our Own Eyes: Eyewitnesses to the Final Days of Amelia Earhart, written with Devine in 2002, presented the eyewitness accounts of more than two-dozen veterans of the Battle of Saipan that corroborated Devine's experience and firmly established the presence of Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan and Electra NR 16020 on pre-war Saupan.
In 2005 he edited "The Atchison Report," which is an extensive debunking of the false Amelia Earhart-as-Irene Bolam theory. Campbell's second book, Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last, scheduled for publication in Spring 2012 by Sunbury Press, presents many new findings and developments, including recently discovered eyewitness testimony and never-before-published correspondence from Fred Goerner that reveals the ongoing, institutionalized Earhart cover-up at the highest levels of the U.S. military establishment, and further establishes the fact that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan met their fate on Japanese-held Saipan in the years preceding Pearl Harbor.
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RONALD BRIGHT |
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RONALD BRIGHT
According to screenwriter Carol Dow, Ron Bright is probably one of the best Earhart researchers she has ever met. He has a limitless library of Earhart facts and figures that is hard to beat from any source. He is quite literally a walking encyclopedia of Amelia Earhart arguments.
After two years of graduate study in Criminology at the University of Washington, Seattle, he was employed as a civilian Special Agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence, now known as Naval Criminal Investigative Service. ONI/NCIS is charged with the investigation of major crimes, counter-intelligence and counter-espionage activities of the Navy and Marine Corp. Retiring from a supervisory position in 1986, Bright formed the "Group Nine Investigations", a private investigative agency primarily conducting criminal defense investigations for defense attorneys. In 1999, he began extensive research and investigation into the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan in July 1937 participating in various Earhart Forums, such as Amelia Earhart society, TIGHAR, and finally forming an independent group The Electa Group. In 2006 he appeared as an "expert" on the National Geographic Special of the disappearance of Earhart, and has contributed material to several authors, including Michael Campbell of "WITH OUR OWN EYES".
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AMELIA & ALEX |
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ALEX MANDEL |
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From across the Atlantic, Alex Mandel of the Ukraine, formerly the Soviet Union, is an avid Amelia Earhart fan. A medical scientist with a Ph.D. in Physics and the author and co-author of several books and articles in the U.S., the Ukraine, and Russia, Alex Mandel has published proceedings at the Laser Institute of America and the American Association of Aerosol Research. He is an Associate Professor at Odessa Medical State University, Ukraine. Since 1982, Mandel has been collecting and studying available information about the life, career, and disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Cooperating with Ron Bright, Mike Campbell, Pat Gaston (a Kansas City attorney), and Bill Prymak (formerly President of the Amelia Earhart Society), Mandel recently compiled an impressive essay debunking the theory that Amelia Earhart survived World War II and came back to the United States as another person using the name, Irene Bolam.
The principle proponent and the originator of the Irene Bolam theories was made in a book by Joe Klaas, entitled Amelia Earhart Lives. This book, at one time, was nominated for a Pulitzer prize, but the nomination was withdrawn when the prize committee arrived at the conclusion that the Irene Bolam story might not be true. Another book, entitled Amelia Earhart Survived by Colonel Rollin C. Reineck, USAF Ret., supports the view that Irene Bolam was Amelia Earhart. None of the Earhart family, including Amelia's husband George Putnam, ever accepted Irene Bolam as being Amelia Earhart. They regarded her as just a polite acquaintance. Adding further fuel to the controversy over the Bolam books, Irene Bolam, on public television several years ago, vehemently denied the fact that she was Amelia Earhart.
Please click on the IRENE BOLAM section on the top menu board to read a description of Mandel's essay. Screenwriter Carol Dow described it as being an excellent piece of detective work.
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LILY GELB Earhart Researcher (Devine & Wallack) Click on GELB INTERVIEWS above to read transcripts
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LILY GELB |
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Lily Gelb has been actively involved in Earhart research since 1989, when, upon moving to Oakland, California, she encountered an amazing series of coincidences linking her with Amelia Earhart. She knew Fred Goerner for years before his death in 1994. Gelb met Thomas Devine and Robert Wallack in 2002 and digitally recorded Devine's testimony from his own lips before he died. Wallack's true story was recorded at the same time. Her monograph, "What Really Happened," documents a continuing trail of Amelia Earhart events. Gelb holds a graduate degree in English from UCLA, earned a lifetime teaching credential from the state of California, and furthered her studies at Art Center, College of Design in Los Angeles, California. She has studied extensively the Chinese art of placement, known as feng shui, both in the USA and China. Gelb has worked as an intuitive designer and feng shui consultant from 1988 to the present.
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OTHER CONTRIBUTORS:
Cameron A. Warren, Author "Earhart's Flight Into Yesterday," Paladwr Press
Rollin Reineck, Colonel USAF (retired), Author "Amelia Earhart Survived," Paragon Agency
David K. Bowman, USNR (retired), Author of “Legerdemain”.
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ASTOR LETTER TO ROOSEVELT
Letter sent to Roosevelt from the NOURMAHAL during the search:
From: Ronald Reuther
Source: FDR Library, Hyde Park, New York
Sent in by Ron Bright
Note: "Kermit" was Kermit Roosevelt, FDR's cousin.
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The hand written letter by Vincent Astor undated
(but sometime in the early Spring of 1838) is as follows:
Nourmahal
Dear Franklin;-
Kermit has been with me on
this whole cruise, and is
leaving tomorrow at
Honolulu to go back to
work. He has had hardly
anything to drink - and
then only beer and sherry -
and is in the best shape in
years. When
you see him, I think you
will agree.
The information gathering
side of our cruise has
proved interesting,
instructive, and, I hope
will be helpful.
On my return, I shall of
course make a proper report
to O.N.I. However,
in the remote possibility of
trouble between now and
then, you might
consider the following
conclusions of mine ...
Read the entire letter and conclusions in “The Lost Flight of Amelia Earhart” book available for purchase in the “Overview” section.
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About twenty years ago I gave an Earhart speech to my Pan Am Management club. In the audience was a Saipanese woman, wife of a fellow employee. They had been married when he was in the Coast Guard, assigned to Saipan.
She told me a fascinating story about her grandmother having been the woman who took care of Earhart while in the prison. I wanted to save her story for the end of my speech and then introduce her. But her husband was absolutely adamant! No way would he let her get mixed up in the publicity that surrounded the Earhart disappearance.
So, this is the first time I have ever mentioned it.
Paul
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Carol -
know you're going for the "interesting" story, since that's what will sell tickets.
So why bother with all the "facts from the experts"?
However, you (personally), should have another look at my book "Flight Into Yesterday". This was based on an unfinished manuscript by Capt. L. F. Safford, a contemporary of Earhart, and a recognized genius in the field of cryptography, with an obvious connection to radio interception, direction-finding, and even an actual sea search for an earlier lost aviator. His research was supplemented by my own, primarily in the area of radio and DF. Needless to say, the findings were somewhat different than the "conventional wisdom" that's so popular with the TIGHAR crowd, and any number of arm-chair experts.
One example; the matter of time, as I've explained on pages xxii and xxiii in the Preface. And see particularly the chapter on "Radio Communications" and my treatise on "The Radio Direction Finder", containing information that no one else has ever unearthed. (And Gillespie has conveniently buried! Where, for example, does he mention Vincent Bendix? And why only a cursory mention of Comdr. Anthony, the ultimate authority on "post-loss messages?) Even Paul Rafford doesn't agree with my findings, much as I admire and respect him, but the facts are the facts.
Another point; "radio men" at that point in time were "brass pounders", a long-proven and reliable means of communication in the maritime service. They handled "formal" messages, regarding primarily routine matters. The Morse Code was "translated", and carefully typed out on a paper form, which was hand-delivered to the responsible ship's officer. Voice messages were generally not used save for close-in work, such as docking a ship. Airplanes changed all that, but even into WWII radio men did not deal with those communications. In 1942, Navy ships were fitted with the Collins TBS ("talk-between-ships") transceiver but that was handled on the bridge (or later - Combat Information Centers), not the radio shack. The point being, the "radio men" weren't really used to, or familiar with, voice radio, nor were they stenographers. So, their "expertise" was on the minimal side, and their logs were not 100% dependable.
I share this information not to change your mind script wise, (write what sells!), but to give you some personal insight into the e-mails that are flying around. I'll try to restrain myself from getting into the fight!
Cam Warren
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A white man who looked like he had a head injury and a white woman survived a 1937 plane crash at Mili Atoll, according to Reverend Joseph C. Wright of Handsboro Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, Mississippi, as reported in a July 3, 1992 article in that city's Sun Herald:
"Former Air Force Major Joseph C. Wright, working as a radar navigator on temporary duty on Guam in 1967...got a seven-day pass to visit a relative on Majuro Atoll. Majuro is the administrative center of the Marshall Islands District in the Central Pacific. The pass also allowed him to do missionary work, which took him to the Mili Atoll, just southeast of Majuro. Wright believes he may have found the missing link....
"On the southern side of Mili lies Enajet Island, where Wright met an old Micronesian man, who told of a 'flying machine' that had landed in the lagoon 30 years before. Approximately 70 years old, the man said a white man with a towel around his head and a short-haired white woman dressed in men's clothing emerged from the wreckage. Wright thinks the man saw Earhart and Noonan, because of the way he recalled the time of the crash -- counting back the years by noting marriages, births, and deaths of family and friends -- and virtually pinpointing the date of Earhart's last radio communication.
"Also, the man had seen few, if any, other white people before or since, and had no way of knowing -- no radio, TV, or newspaper --who Earhart was. Wright said the man told him that the Japanese, who controlled the Marshall Islands in 1937, did not allow the natives near the two crash survivors. An island woman who tried to befriend them was beheaded."
Paul
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I heard the same thing, about the two white people – a man and a woman - presumably Amelia and Fred, from the same Robert Reimers, Oscar deBrum, Bilimon Amram, Tamaki Myazoe, Lotan Jack, John Heine. Would this many Marshallese want to invent it? I don’t think so. AES friends and fellow-enthusiasts, I said the same thing at the recent National Geographic interview, too.
Alfred Capelle
Ambassador and PR
Permanent Mission of the Marshall Islands to the United Nation
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Of all the signals in the world, the Betty reception was the most absurd from a content and technical standpoint. Our research showed a hugh yacht regatta in the area at the time with a sinking, a boat named "Maria", etc. Someone was posing as AE. And Ric never could resolve the two private amateur call signs that appear on the top of Bettys noteboook. One of which was traced to a gent in the Miami area who had told his daughter once of 'hearing Amelia Earhart" and trying to get in touch. I think it was W40K, or something like that.(No files here).
Anyway we have some ten pages of cursive writing for forty five minutes while she is sitting back listening to the radio, writing the phrases as they came in intermittently fast and furious. And not one single error, crossover, strikeout, mistake, etc. Impossible. Try it. Ric tested her ability and she could do it, but I will bet that ain't in the book.
Our group interviewed Betty. She is simply mistaken. We have polled all the amateurs in Florida about the intercept in July 1937. No one else recalls this signal. We tried to verify it thru the Coast Guard where supposedly the father reported it, also negative. She didn't tell any teachers, friends, etc. that we could find.
When major books came out in 1960s she didn't come forth.
Paul Rafford said it was impossible to transmit some 8000 miles, day, with her radio set up.
She had to be on land, but where???
Ron Bright
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Subject: The Nauru radio intercepts
Carol,
I had been going over my Nauru files with regard to the post loss messages when I came up with some interesting letters.
In 1969, the Australian periodical, Pacific Islands Monthly published a request by Professor Frank Holbrook of Fordham University Prep School for information about the Chief Operator of the Nauru radio station during Earhart's flight. Two subscribers who had lived on Nauru replied. One was T.H. Cude, who had been Director of Police at the time.
Cude claimed he heard her on his home shortwave set for about two hours as she approached and passed the island.
"She declared that she had the lights of the island in sight, not once but several times."
Another former Nauru resident, Irene Sexton quoted the diary of the wife of the Island's Administrator,
"July 2nd, We picked up her wireless at 6 pm, but although increasingly loud, we could not make out her speech."
"July 3rd. We heard their wireless calls clearly but again could not make out any words.:
"July 4th. Heard Mrs. Putnam calling again."
Although I believe these transmissions were hoaxes and deliberately distorted to provide justification for launching an Earhart search, you could use them in your scenario.
Paul
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On behalf of Joe Klaas Subject: Robert Reimers
Is it beginning to look "obvious" that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were alive and in custody long after they failed on July 2, 1937 to arrive at Howland Island? Weeks after they were supposed to be dead?
A sorry-looking lot of Americans waited in the crowd at the Majuro airport in 1997.
Eight out of ten of us had been or still were seriously ill from hardships of the AES 1997 expedition.
Joe Gervais, on his seventeenth search of Pacific Islands, had an infected leg which might have to be amputated. He later survived with the amputation of only one toe. Admiral Tissot had a leg infection and pneumonia, and Margaret Mead was going home to be bedridden for weeks with infected lungs. All but two of us were ill as we waited for standby seats on the next Air Micronesia flight on its way, via Johnson Island, to Honolulu.
A very old, robe-protected man was wheel-chaired to the head of the line with great respect. He was Robert Reimers, founder, CEO, and genius behind the sprawling Robert Reimers Enterprises, Incorporated, known as RRE, which has hotels, shopping centers, hardware stores, travel agents, and dive boat operations at Majuro. And across the rest of the far-flung Marshall Islands RRE owns perimeter hotels, fuel depots, stores, and nearly all other businesses in the outer islands. In the Republic of the Marshall Islands his address was P.O. Box 1, and his primary car bears license plate number l.
"This man must know everything," Bill Prymak whispered. I'm going to finagle a seat next to him."
Reimers was flying to Honolulu for medical attention. Prymak talked an accompanying grandson into swapping seats aboard the night flight.
"Mr. Reimers, we just came back from Jaluit," Bill began. "Do you personally know much about the island?"
"Mr. Bill," Reimers answered, "I was born at Jabor in 1909, and was raised there until 1935, when our family moved to Likiep Atoll. Tourists never visit Jaluit. What made you go there?"
"Some of us have been there before," Bill replied. "We were looking for additional information on Amelia Earhart."
"Ah yes, the Earhart woman..." Reimers chuckled. "Why are you Americans still looking for her and her airplane?"
"Mr. Reimers, she has never been found. Her sister and other members of her family deserve to know..."
"Ah yes, family," the old man nodded. "I know family very well. Do you know I have eleven children and 67 grandkids?"
"That is remarkable," Bill marveled. "Can you tell me some of your experiences with the Japanese before WWII?"
"The Germans had made Jaluit their commercial headquarters before WWI," Reimers replied. "When the Japanese Navy kicked out the Germans, they sealed the Marshall Islands to all foreigners. Those very few Americans and other foreign nationals that did sneak under the curtain were shown only what the Japanese wanted them to see, and that was very little. About 1930, I had established myself with the Japanese as a responsible trader, and I did much commerce with them right until and through WWII. I even supplied them with construction materials and local labor for their island projects."
"What kind of projects?"
"Well, before 1935 it was mainly commercial and communications facilities...harbor dredging, wharves, docks, hospitals, and big, tall radio towers," Reimers said. "But after 1935 the Japanese began some military projects like the airfields at Wotje and Maloelap. I had a good business relationship with them. But after 1936 they began bringing in foreign construction laborers, and conditions go worse for my local people."
"What was going on at Imiej?"
"Imiej was a very secret place, and even my local people had little access to this area. I was one of the few Marshallese allowed in because I delivered construction materials. Jabor docks were built ion 1936, and the seaplane ramps and docks for the Naval Base at Imiej were started about the same time. My shipping records were all taken by the Japanese when the great war started, but I am sure of the dates I just mentioned. Military construction projects at Mili didn't start until 1940."
"What hospital facilities were available in 1937 at Imiej?"
"The Japanese converted the old German hospital at Jabor to a very small medical facility, and at Imiej they built a hospital because so many workers, mostly Korean, were there working on the concrete phase of the seaplane Naval Base."
"Many of your people, notably the elders, speak of the brutality of the Japanese against your people during the war years," Bill said. "They described how for the theft of a coconut, a head was severed....how Imiej became the execution center for both Allied prisoners of war, and the local population. Can you comment on this tragic chapter in your country's history?"
The old man who had started his career supplying the Japanese sadly shook his head. "Remember, Mr. Bill, Imiej was very secretive, but the stories you hear today from the elders are true. I must add that towards the end of the war when things were going badly for the Japanese, my people feared for their lives, and fled to unoccupied islands to escape what they expected as mass slaughter for those who stayed.
"These times were very bad for the Marshallese," said Reimers, who in one lifetime had spoken Marshallese, German, Japanese, and English. "The elders remember as I do."
"Can you help me with any information regarding the possibility of Amelia Earhart being down in your islands in July of 1937?" Bill held his breath.
Reimers nodded. "It was widely known throughout the Islands by both Japanese and Marshallese that a Japanese fishing boat first found them and their airplane near Mili. They then transferred them to a bigger boat. They were brought to Jabor, where Bilimon treated them. Oscar DeBrum and the Carle Heine family were living there and knew of this. They were then taken to Kwajelein, and from there to Truk, and then Saipan. There was no mystery. Everybody knew it!"
"But Mr. Reimers, the Japanese strongly denied seeing them, and sent airplanes and ships out to search for her. How can this be?"
"Even in 1937, an intrusion in these Islands was a very serious offense," Reimers explained. "And in the case of Earhart, a woman pilot, great cover and secrecy was placed upon them by the Japanese. But these are our Islands. And my people, even in their fear, proved very resourceful in knowing about such things."
"Did you personally know Bilimon and the Heine family?" asked Bill.
"I knew Bilimon very well, and rest easy if you worry about his story of treating the two Americans," Reimers replied. "You will never find a more honest man. You know of course, he died last year. He was a good man. And the Heine family? John and Dwight's parents were executed during the war. I grew up with them, and they were the finest missionary people I ever met. John and Dwight knew about the Americans, but would never talk much."
"Joe Gervais, who knows more about Amelia Earhart than anyone else alive, has visited one or another of these islands, as well as Howland, Saipan, Guam, or Truk seventeen times." Bill motioned toward Joe, near delirium with his leg infection, across the aisle from Prymak and Reimers. "Why did he so often meet a curtain of silence when he asked the Islanders about Earhart and Noonan?"
"It's hard for you Americans to know the fright and fear of my people from the war," Reimers answered. "At any moment the Japanese could come smashing into your house, take anything you might have, and march you off to prison...or behead you in the name of the Emperor. Those fears didn't die easily. Some old timers still think the Japanese might come back. Some still think it wouldn't be wise to talk about things the Japanese held secret during the war. People who saw so much killing still say, 'Why the big fuss over one lady flyer? We saw thousands die!'"
The old man's eyes told Bill the interview was over. By shear determination and innovation, Prymak, who had collected a quantity of Earhart information rivaling our mutual friend, Joe Gervais' findings, had scored an exclusive interview with the man who knew more about what was going on in the Marshall Islands than anyone else alive.
Around midnight as our sleepy crowd of explorers was passing through the disembarking tube into the terminal at Honolulu, Reimers looked back from his wheelchair and waved.
"Good luck!" he smiled. "Go to Saipan! Find your Amelia!"
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From Rollin Reineck:
The two antennas tied together on the bottom of the airplane was for some useful purpose. It is my opinion that the damage to that Antenna was the cause of no receiver capability.
Rollin,
The two bottom antennas may have been wired into the "V" but their main purpose was to act as a receptor for the loop d/f sytem as I understand the problem. The primary receiving antenna for voice communications was the "V." The "V" would have been left undisturbed and operating even if the two belly antennas were torn off. The way Smith and Rafford explained the problem to me is that all "Vs" had a relay switch that could alternate between send and receive. The receiver, it seems, was operating. The problem was the transmitter may have blown a fuse from heavy useage in the Howland area. It happened once before on this flight. It probably happened again. Thusly, the sudden cessation of transmissions from AE & FN... the transmitter was probably in the process of shutting down because of a failing dynamotor.
That's what we believe happened. On land, with the airplane out of the water, FN could have changed the fuse on the dynamotor. Exactly how long this may have taken we do not know, but it does explains the long stretch of time before the Nauru intercept was received (for instance). Paul Rafford believes it would have been a complicated procedure (in flight) which means Earhart would have had to vacate the pilot's seat (not likely).
Now then, in the operation of the loop, the conclusion is that AE-FN could have flown in on Jaluit radio, a Japanese commercial broadcast station. The loop would still operate and receive even if the belly antennas were torn off. However, it would have been harder or next to impossible to pickup a signal with the loop system switched to "antenna." To take a bearing, the system would have to be switched to "loop," and in the process it would by-pass the belly antennas and receive only from the loop. I know it's hard to understand, but that's the way it was explained to me.
Paul, you are getting a copy of this one, would you want to add anything? We could not find any evidence that the receiving system failed.
Carol Dow,
Screenwriter - Technical Adviser
Allied Artists, Inc.
Carol,
I have nothing vital to add, you have told the story just as we discussed on the telephone. However, I'll add a few hundred words just the same
Using Jaluit radio to help find the Marshalls is just a suggestion. Pan Am people knew it was there and used it to calibrate the Wake D/F. It could provide track lines on Noonan's chart while his sunlines could cross with them for positions. At that time of day on the New York/Bermuda run we used AM stations in New York out to about 500 miles for track lines, and crossed them with speed lines from bearings taken on Baltimore, Norfolk, etc. Then we switched to Bermuda's beacon and crossed the track lines from it with sunlines.
My original theory was that Earhart, having lost faith in Noonan's navigation, now turned to the only nav system she knew how to use, her loop. From where ever she thought she was, she would turn toward Jaluit. I don't go with the Gillespie theory that her belly antenna was torn off. What I see is the plane hitting a puddle. The belly antenna was the primary pick-up for the RA-1 d/f receiver. Jaluit would be weaker on the loop than with the antenna. But if the antenna was torn off, she would have to be closer before she could pick up its signal with the loop. But the 500 mile range still holds. And as Carol has pointed out, the track line from Howland to Jaluit crosses close to Mili. This adds credence to the story of the two boys who watched a plane ditch at Mili and two people come ashore and bury a box. But the plane was in the water and this doesn't help with post loss signals from the Electra.
When Amelia was allegedly in the vicinity of Howland she failed to tell the ship what frequency she was listening to, whether she wanted an answer on voice or telegraph, and she never stayed on the air long enough for Cipriani to swing his loop. All of her comments could have been scripted weeks beforehand for transmission at this time. Also, she never answered any of Bill Galten's more than fifty calls on all his frequencies. She never even asked for a "count" so she could tune him in. Later, Bill gave me his reaction, "Paul, that woman never intended to land of Howland!"
With that said, what is the justification for believing that she may have blown a fuse on her transmitter? In her last transmission Earhart announced that she was switching to 6210. She should have been even louder than on 3105. But Itasca never heard her again. So, did she blow a fuse right then? With the flyers attention now turned to more important problems than calling on the radio, they failed to trouble shoot their radio problem.
Then, for the sake of Carol's story, after they land safely somewhere they decide to check the radio. Noonan discovers a blown fuse and gets a new one out of the spare parts kit. I'll let Carol's expertise as a script writer carry on from there.
Paul
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Ongoing research at Allied Artists:
E-mail to Lost Flight Group of Researchers by Screenwriter Carol Dow to the group:
Paul Rafford (author "Amelia Earhart's Radio" ) and myself had about a 2 hr. conference call with Bruce Smith in Kansas City. One of the conclusions we reached was that the transmitting dynamotor (voltage booster) under the pilot's seat could have blown a fuse (overuse) in the Howland area. That would be one way of accounting for the sudden loss of transmissions on the world flight. It happened before. We also concluded that if the airplane crashed on land they may have been able to replace the fuse. Thusly... post loss transmissions. Gillespie's contention (Ref: book "Finding Ameia") that the loss of the belly antenna(s) caused a loss of receiving transmissions was vehemently rejected. The "V" antenna (beyond question) would have been rigged to transmit and receive irrespective of the belly antenna situation. There were no "V" antennas that were installed (anywhere) transmit only. It did not make sense. All the "Vs" had an internal relay switch between transmit and receive. Thusly, Earhart could receive but not transmit after she switched to 6210 and after the dynamotor failed. The direction finding overhead loop could have been very easily tuned to Jaluit radio (Marshall Islands) and given Earhart a steer crossing Mili Atoll enroute... thusly all the stories and the sightings of a downed airplane emanating from Mili Atoll (Marshall Islands). Bruce Smith, it turns out, was a Chief (Electronics) Coast Guard WW II and was very "erudite" as Paul described the conversation.
Carol Linn Dow
Screenwriter- Technical Adviser
Allied Artists, Inc.
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EXPERT: SPEAKERS DIFFERENT Story by SUE EMMONS, News Tribune TESTS: TWO WOMEN NOT THE SAME
Irene Bolam was not Amelia Earhart, according to the world's foremost expert on voice identification. Dr. Oscar Tosi has conducted comparison testing of the tape recorded voices of Mrs. Bolam and Miss Earhart and has determined that the two women were not the same.
Dr. Tosi is head of the Speech and Hearing Sciences Research Laboratory at Michigan State University's Institute of Voice Identification. In the case of Mrs. Bolam who had been named in the book "Amelia Earhart Lives" as the missing aviatrix, other means of identification, were thwarted. While Miss Earhart's fingerprints were available, Mrs.Bolam's were not. While Mrs. Bolam's blood type was available, Miss Earhart's was not. While data was available on the dental charts of Miss Earhart, no charts were traceable for Mrs. Bolam. Similarly, sufficient x-rays were not taken of Mrs.Bolam to determine if she had undergone the sinus surgery that was performed on Miss Earhart in 1924.
But the voices of the two women were available — Mrs.Bolam speaking in a television broadcast in 1971 when she denied she was Miss Earhart, in a telephone conversation recorded by Robert Myers of Salinas,Calif., and in a conversation about flying recorded by an acquaintance, Diana Dawes, aboard an airplane. The Earhart voice was taken from various radio broadcasts which she made prior to her disappearance in 1937, including one long speech about the rights of women. The Earhart tapes were supplied by the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, also at Michigan State. "The two voices were very similar," Dr. Tosi said in explaining his conclusion, reached through computer and aural analysis. He said the difference in the ages of the two women when the recordings were made could have some effect, but not enough to alter the results. Miss Earhart was recorded when in her 30's; Mrs. Bolam was considerably older, in her 70's, when her tapes were made. The tests resulted in a 75 percent similarity based on aural examination by five trained voice identification experts and a 55 percent similarity based on computer analysis. "In any kind of scientific test, the standard probability would be 95 to 99 percent to say they were the same," Dr. Tosi explained. "If I were to testify in court, I would say, based on our analysis, that they are not the same." He added that the computer result "showed a very low probability" that the voices were the same. He was decisive in saying the combined results revealed that the two were not the same person. The aural testing by the five examiners included the extraction of voice features such as dialect, inflection, respiratory group, melody curve and pitch, he said. Dr. Oscar Tosi of Michigan State University, who performed a voice analysis of the Amelia Earhart - IreneBolam tape recordings, is the world's leading expert on the technique. Among the voice analysis boosters is Dr. Maurice Crane of Michigan State, who supplied the Earhart tapes toThe News Tribune from the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library which he heads at the university. Crane calls the technique "better than fingerprints."
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Western Union Telegram dated July 5, 1937 >> "Care Coast Guard Oakland Airport Oakland, California - >> NOT NECESSARY HAVE MOTOR RUNNING FOR OPERATION OF RADIO ON EARHART > PLANE STOP TWO BATTERIES CARRIED WILL PERMIT OPERATION INDEPENDENT > OF CHARGING GENERATOR MOUNTED ON MOTORS FOR EIGHT HOURS IF > INTERMITTANCY USED STOP SUGGUEST MISS EARHART POSSIBLY RUNNING > GETNERATOR MOUNTED MOTOR SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH USE OF TRANSMITTER > UNTIL GAS GONE WITH RADIO EQUIPMENT OPERATIVE FOR LONGER PERIOD > STOP THIS WIRE TO CORRECT ERRONEOUS NEWSPAPER REPORTS" >> SIGNED - J. H. GURR
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Read more research details in “The Lost Flight of Amelia Earhart” book available for purchase in the “Overview” section.
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