# Did Amelia Earhart Fake Her Own Death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 19, 2003, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647 "2003-09-19T18:10:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/1 "2003-09-19T18:10:09Z")
Years ago I read a story in the “NATIONAL INQUIRER” that talked about interviewing an old woamn in Clifden, NJ, who claimed to Emila Earhart. The woman answered all of the questions, and had obviously flown aircraft. She said that she had staged the disappearence becuse she was sick of publicity, and wanted tolive a normallife. This article came out in the mid-1970’s-I’m sure she is dead by now. Is there any evidence that EA faked her deathn and retired to suburban NJ?😕 ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/2 "2003-09-19T18:18:27Z")
She was abducted by aliens and was transplanted to the Delta Quadrant only to be discovered in the 24th century. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/3 "2003-09-19T18:32:01Z")
She was killed by 1920s style “Death Rays”. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/4 "2003-09-19T19:33:39Z")
Now let’s be serious here. No she did not fake her death… The Iluminati did because she was going to expose their secret plans of using certain soda pop products to rule the world. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/5 "2003-09-19T20:44:51Z")
Actually, faking her death would probably have been more difficult than her actual failed flight. She was tracked out into the Pacific, then failed to show up at Howland Island, but she was close enough to some ships monitoring the flight to be picked up on their radios. So, if she did not land at Howland Island, where _did_ she land? What did she do with her navigator to keep him from talking? Why did she abandon her husband (with whom she apparently hd a good relationship)? The fact that neither she nor Noonan were fully familiar with radio navigation and that her radio equipment had suffered unexpected failures earlier during the flight would seem to indicate that they were simply not equipped to attempt a 2,600 mile flight to look for a postage stamp in the Pacific. (Trans-Atlantic flights allow for correction at landfall; there was no landfall for anyone who missed Howland.) ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/6 "2003-09-19T21:56:58Z")
I think she made the mistake of consuming soda and Pop Rocks at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/7 "2003-09-19T22:08:05Z")
It was Lindbergh in drag the whole time. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/8 "2003-09-20T15:34:55Z")
Psst… Amelia? If you’re out there, I think the joke has gotten kind of old! ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/9 "2003-09-20T20:20:02Z")
All right, I’ll try to be serious, thought it’s probably too late for that. Earhart was a publicity junkie. She married her publicist (publisher George Putnam). And she was no shrinking violet. The lived life on her own terms, which unfortunately for her led her to be a careless pilot (as well as a mediocre one, according to her contemporaries), unheedful of others’ advice. There’s nothing like a dead but missing celeb to get the gossip mills cranking, but Earhart did not survive any more than Anastasia did. ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/10 "2003-09-20T23:40:16Z")
Tonight the History Channel is showing an [episode](http://www.historychannel.com/global/listings/series_showcase.jsp?EGrpType=Series&Id=8455507&NetwCode=THC) of **Vanishings!** about Amelia Earhart at 11 pm. It may not be accurate but at least one can see some newsreel photos about her. Anyone know if Amelia Earhart Luggage is still sold? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/11 "2003-09-21T07:55:19Z")
Gore Vidal, in his book _United States_, makes the claim that Amelia was fed up with the publicity that she’d been getting and that she’d joked with Vidal’s father about the two of them going off to some remote tropical isle together. Gore firmly believes that Amelia faked her own death and hid out on an island after killing her navigator (a terminal alcoholic, apparently) and that there are accounts of the various islanders spotting someone who matched her description. There was an account of someone a few years ago finding the wreckage of the kind of plane that Amelia had been flying, along with the same type of women’s shoe that she wore on an island, but I don’t know if anyone ever came up with conclusive proof that it was or wasn’t Amelia’s plane. Personally, I think that Lindburg killed her because she knew too much about the kidnapping of his son. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/12 "2003-09-21T08:24:47Z")
She crashed into an island in the South Pacific. Now, she survived the crash, but she ran into some unfriendly natives ( bulgy-eyed and rough, scabby skinned natives) that sacrificed her in their eldritch rites. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/13 "2003-09-22T07:20:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuckerfan \* > \*\*Personally, I think that Lindburg killed her because she knew too much about the kidnapping of his son. \*\* I’m a bit confused with that one my friend. You know, the other day in a book called “Chronicles of the 20th Century” I came across a photograph of Charles Lindburgh’s young son at his 1st birthday party blowing out just one solitary lonely candle on his cake. He was a beautiful, darling, tender little boy. And he never even got to see his 2nd birthday. Kidnapped at 20 months, and his corpse found 2 months after that, the poor little lad. Perhaps your joke was just a bit of an arcane, obscure aside - and fair enough - I’m as guilty as anyone over the years of making highly insensitive jokes - but for some reason, being a first time father of a lovely 9 month old girl, that photo of Charles Lindburgh’s “never to grow old” little boy really tugged at my heart strings. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/14 "2003-09-22T07:31:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Perhaps your joke was just a bit of an arcane, obscure aside - and fair enough - I’m as guilty as anyone over the years of making highly insensitive jokes - but for some reason, being a first time father of a lovely 9 month old girl, that photo of Charles Lindburgh’s “never to grow old” little boy really tugged at my heart strings. I’m pretty sure **Tuckerfan** was making a reference to a joke on _Family Guy_, **Boo Boo Foo**. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/15 "2003-09-22T10:40:28Z")
Oh sorry… I don’t watch that show I’m afraid. No offence intended there **Tuckerfan**. ---
**Author:** ![T.Mehr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@T.Mehr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.Mehr)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/16 "2003-09-22T11:37:32Z")
Now, who would tell the National Enquierer that one was sick of publicity, and wanted to live a normal life. Doesn’t seem to help your cause. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-amelia-earhart-fake-her-own-death/202647/17 "2003-09-22T21:58:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Boo Boo Foo \* > \*\*Oh sorry… I don’t watch that show I’m afraid. > > No offence intended there **Tuckerfan**. \*\* **Marley23** nailed it. No harm, no foul, **Boo Boo Foo**.