Trump Admin Declassifies Records Relating to Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance

Newly declassified records revealed how U.S. agencies responded to reports that Amelia Earhart’s plane sent distress signals days after the 39-year-old and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, during her attempt to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world.

The 4,624-page release, declassified by the Trump administration on Nov. 14, included 53 wide-ranging PDF files, including two that are titled, in part, “Relating to the last flight and disappearance of Amelia Earhart.”

Weather Conditions

The first document detailed Earhart’s final correspondence with the Itasca, a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) vessel stationed at Howland Island—which lies approximately halfway between Hawaii and Australia—on the day she vanished.

According to a summary of transmissions heard by Itasca from Earhart, the pilot reported that conditions were “part cloudy,” she was running low on gas, and she was flying at 1,000 feet at 7:42 a.m.

At 8:43 a.m., the pilot’s last words to Itasca were in a garbled transmission that stated, “We are running North and South on the line 157-337 will repeat msg on 6210 KCS WAIT.”

The log then reported Itasca responding with “u ok” and “do not hr u,” according to the official radio log.

A response was not returned.

Itasca confirmed weather reports showing that, around the time Earhart disappeared, the wind never exceeded 6 mph.

Search Efforts

The second document detailed the search efforts that followed the disappearance of the Kansas-born pilot’s Lockheed 10-E Electra, including a report that an operator heard her voice.

The USCG reported on July 4, 1937, that it received unconfirmed reports that “Earhart plane heard 16000 KCS period position on a reef southwest of Howland Island.”

Howland Island was supposed to be the flyer’s planned fueling stop during the trip.

The USCG suggested the information could “be authentic,” and on the back of the same dispatch document, a cursive note read “this very important” and included the words “Honolulu apparently getting Earhart signals.”

At 11:46 p.m. on July 4, “Howland reported hearing plane signals,” and the Baker Island station verified signals from Earhart’s plane.

One of the revelations comes on page 96, where it is written that an “Itasca operator reported hearing [a] voice” days after the crash.

In the early morning hours on July 5, Itasca reported sending and receiving dashes back from what appeared to be her aircraft and added “Earhart Plane 281 North Howland apparently confirmed by radio compass.”

A British steamer heading west reported “apparent Earhart position 281 miles North Howland.”

Itasca “sighted flares” and proceeded toward them just after 10 p.m. on July 5.

Search teams covered more than 2,000 square miles north and northwest of the Howland area in choppy water but came up empty.

Earhart’s husband, George Putnam, even asked Edgar Cayce, a renowned psychic at the time, to locate her by “mental telepathy,” according to a document in the newly released files.

“Cayce did so, but the area he indicated in which the plane supposedly landed was searched without result,” the document stated.

Theories About Earhart

Earhart’s disappearance has captivated the world for more than 80 years.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery believed that Earhart’s aircraft failed to find Howland Island, so they instead landed on Gardner Island’s fringing reef.

They are believed to have sent distress calls from the uninhabited island until “rising tides and surf had swept the Electra over the reef edge.”

Human remains were recovered from an unmarked grave on the island of Saipan, 2,700 miles away from Howland. They were investigated as potentially belonging to Earhart or Noonan but are not believed to have belonged to either person, according to findings from anthropologist Theodore McCown in 1961.

The FBI declared the aviator “legally dead” in 1939 and said she “disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean.”

Records were made public on the National Archives website after President Donald Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to declassify and release “government records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her.”

“Delivering on President Trump’s promise, the release of the Amelia Earhart files will shine light on the disappearance of a beloved American aviator who has been at the center of public inquisition for decades,” Gabbard said.