42: What Happened To Amelia Earhart? | Red Thread
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The cockpit was drenched in darkness, only dim dials flickered faintly as the Pacific stretched into a soundless abyss below. Amelia's knuckles turned white as she gripped the controls, her calls to the outside world lost in the static's maddening hiss. The body beside her, her co-pilot, had been knocked out from the turbulence. The fog rose from the ocean, cold tendrils wrapping around the aircraft as she squinted desperately into the outside world.

Well, that's what the so-called "experts" would have you believe!

But no, that's not what happened to Amelia Earhart. Just a simple crash into the ocean. Yeah, right. We've heard it all before, experts. Your lies won't work here because this is the red thread after all. And we're going to get to the bottom of this, Caleb. We're going to find out what happened to Amelia Earhart. We're going to interview the coconut crab who devoured her bones those many years ago or whatever theory you were talking about before we hit record. She deserved it.

Oh, geez, you're coming out strong. How dare this woman in the 30s rise above her peers and forge her feminine path? Yeah, it's too soon. Hey, bud, how'd that work out for her? Yeah, this is why you should remember your place in society. That's Caleb's message from the beginning. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I have a beautiful, strong, independent girlfriend woman, lady. She's like the Amelia Earhart of our generation.

Are you trying to one-up me? My girlfriend wrote this document. See, women are doing everything. That's pretty badass. That's pretty cool. Women are doing everything for us. They can write? We just sit here and click record. That's all we do. Yeah, that's true. You're right. Just sit here and dedicate time to sitting. Literally, that's it. I'm going to say the most controversial statement of all time right now, Caleb. Are you ready for this? This might ruin your career. Just by being in the presence of someone willing to admit this. But I think women are pretty cool.

It took me a while to start to realize that that is even an option. I've been leaning towards it. As of late, I've been leaning towards it. I've been leaning towards that. And we're not just saying that because we'll get beaten up once we leave this recording session by the powerful women in our lives. We're saying it earnestly.

But hello, this is Red Thread. We're missing someone. We're missing our own beautiful woman in that of Isaiah. He's gone rogue. He's recording. I think he's doing a Creepcast tour at the moment. Yeah, live. He's not able to join us. And meanwhile, you missed last week's episode due to some kind of car crash, you said, or something? It wasn't exactly a car crash. It was extremely stressful...

How I say driving, let's say driving. Let's say really stressful driving that resulted in a lot of negative feelings for multiple people. We'll leave it at that. That sounds like a very bad way of saying a car crush. What actually happened? Was there like a fender bender? No, it was just... So we took this RV on the road, this RV thing, and it's really big. And some roads are really small.

And those roads, yeah, it's like, it was a little, there were some squirrely moments, multiple. It wasn't just one specific incident. It was just like essentially white knuckle driving for six hours. Let's say that. Right, right. So super stressful driving, gotcha. Insanely stressful. Yeah, it was the road just like not wide enough basically to accommodate the van.

Yeah, it is. There's some road. We made a bad decision in Texas and got in a bad area. And there's not roads that are meant for. Just like rural roads, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not roads that are meant for a F600 truck with a big old swollen butt on it.

You would think the rural roads could accommodate those enormous trucks that you Americans love to drive. But no, the infrastructure hasn't caught up yet. That's what Americans mean when they say American infrastructure is shit. They mean that all the roads can't accommodate these enormous trucks. We need more giant roads.

more roads we actually have a local rural road uh that everyone calls suicide road because if you drive on it you're gonna be committing suicide like you you will die on that road i don't know why they it's still open or allowed to be driven on because every time someone drives on it they die it's actually like a national threat just because of the same kind of yeah that'll be my last video me dying on suicide road fantastic i

My parents will be so proud. But yeah, it's one of those like rural roads that like wind up a mountain and stuff. It's like cataclysmic. It's like very narrow, very rocky, a lot of sharp turns where you can't see what's around the other bend. So you have to like go around very slowly. And yeah, I don't understand how it's legal, but it is.

I'll tell you what, though, to tie this into what we're talking about, Amelia Earhart would have dominated on that road because she was fearless. She was an incredible woman. I sound like Donald Trump then a little bit saying incredible woman. Yeah. Incredible woman. Fearless. She was fearless. She was one of the best. I wouldn't have crashed.

Before we continue, though, people are probably looking at the screen and wondering why you're in a field. Do you want to explain that? The RV trip kept going, and now we're in Appalachia, where I grew up, and we're just kind of hanging out, pretty much, and it's like

Internet's a little worse than I thought. Everything's a little... Everything always turns out worse than you think when you're traveling, so next time I'll know how to... Yeah, it's like... It's fucking nonsense, but it's beautiful. So that's really all that matters. I got this cool tree over here. Got a cool tree, but...

You showed me, before the call, you put on your webcam or whatever and showed me around. It looked fucking beautiful, like picturesque. It is beautiful. It's fucking beautiful. Especially, I mean, they're going to get 4K amazing footage of it. You'll have to have an editor or somebody. Full screen net, bitch. Sorry, excuse me. Yeah, I just burped a lot. That's what nature does to a man.

It was like with gas. Yeah, being out in nature. Exactly. So, cool.

Alright, now that we've got all the pleasantries out of the way, let's say, basically to sum up what we were just talking about, Isaiah's gone, he's on Creepcast Tour, and Caleb's in a field somewhere, and I'm in my dark, dingy room. And it's Red Thread time. We will be talking about Amelia Earhart, and again, my beautiful, wonderful, powerful, brave woman, my girlfriend, compiled this document for us to read through about Amelia Earhart, her hero. So...

It'll be linked in the description below. She chose this, by the way. I sent her a bunch of topics to choose from for this week, and she chose Amelia Earhart. I don't even think that was on the topic list. So she's really forging her own way. So she chose this one. So she really wanted to talk about this one, it seems. I didn't really realize there was a conspiracy or like a mystery element to this. I thought it was just like a foregone conclusion that she crashed.

Yeah. Well, anytime anybody goes missing, there's a lot of conspiracies. There's a lot of theories. Specifically, this one is like, you know, someone going missing and then they're a really famous person as well. It's not just like some random ass, some random lady in a plane. It's not like a John Denver type situation. But there are theories that he's alive as well.

Or like a D.B. Cooper situation where she parachuted out of the plane with hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever the fuck it was. Exactly, yeah, and landed in a log in Montana or something like that. Well, maybe D.B. Cooper landed on a tropical island and was eaten by giant coconut crabs. Damn! He flew across the Pacific Ocean. Yep. I did not see that coming.

That would be one hell of a conclusion to the story. Okay, so Amelia Earhart, do you like her? Do you love her? What are your feelings about Amelia Earhart? The first thing I said was she deserved it. I didn't mean that. That was a joke. And, you know, I do think she's... I remember learning about her in school. I think she's an incredible woman who did a lot of impossible, before that time, things.

And in her time, she was an absolute legend and it is a travesty that she passed away. But also, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Yeah, it's kind of like a foregone conclusion, especially in the 20s. To me, she's like an... What's his name? The fucking stuntman that used to jump across buses and tragically do it. She's like an Evel Knievel of her time, basically. You're doing these... You're pushing the line forward or whatever in pursuit of...

personal accomplishment and world records and such. And there's inherent risk that comes with that, obviously. So if you keep doing it, you're going to meet the risk sooner rather than later. But that doesn't mean she's any less awesome or anything. I still think what she did was incredible. And not to mention, I mean, we're 100 years in the future. She'd be dead anyways. And there's 100% chance you will die eventually. And she just kind of got there a little closer. So...

And we're still going to be talking about her for hundreds of years to come because she was literally the first person to do what she did, which is incredible. What's our accomplishment? Are people going to be talking about us in 100 years? That's the risk you're going to take if you want to go down in history, right? I hope not. I fucking hope not, dude. You hope people aren't talking about you? No. Fuck no. Leave me be. You want to die in an unmarked grave?

Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be mourned, grieved, or remembered. Yeah, I mean, fair enough. I want family. I feel like there's a middle ground or something, like people that care about me dying, but maybe not like global inspiration levels of what she has. What good does it do? You know, what good does it do, Jackson? Tell me that. Well, we pushed it forward. She made flying possible for women.

Before that, they weren't allowed in planes. Who cares? All right, let's talk about Amelia Earhart. Do you want to take the early life? I'll take it there. I'll take the early life. I feel as though it is my duty coming off so strong now that we are showing a picture of this adorable child that I'm like, I feel like a giant asshole. Amelia Earhart was born on July 24th, 1897 to parents Edwin Stanton Earhart and Amy Amelia Otis.

That's like my childhood.

Yeah. Pretty much. I don't know if I told, I doubt I've told this story on red thread, but over here in Australia, we have looking back, this is like a super fucked up tradition. It was called cane toad hunting. Uh,

You know what cane toads are, right? They're like an invasive species over here in Australia, like these giant toads that were introduced. I believe they were introduced to kill locusts that were harming our farms, but then the cane toads started multiplying even quicker than the locusts and they started becoming an enormous pest that ruined the farms as well.

Anyway, so there's this tradition growing up where you go out with like a golf club and just bash cane toads to death. It was super fucked up. So that was my childhood. That's cool. That's not cool. I feel bad. I feel slimy thinking about how many cane toads I've killed. And it's a tradition that just everyone in Australia does.

They are invasive and they do destroy... Maybe the... Yeah, but my feeling is like you still kill them humanely. You don't go out there and start bashing them to death with a golf club. They're toads. Hey, guess what? I feel like maybe, I think potentially, you could, if there's like one of those justice scale things, you could weigh how much good you've done in your life through YouTube and everything, which is, I'm feeling extremely nihilistic today. The most good you maybe have ever done in your whole life is killing those toads.

What? Really? I mean, in terms of the natural order of things, the net benefit, the natural order of things, potentially because that will have such an effect for such a long period of time in that small area, you know?

I guess, but also my problem isn't so much that they died, it's that I took murderous glee and bashing in their little skulls with the golf club. That's so barbaric and mean and brutal. And it's just kind of hammered into you as a child, like, this is fun.

Go around the streets of the golf club. I know. And I'm picturing like the cosmic scale example that you just brought up. And if we actually see that, it's going to be weighed so heavily to the many souls of the cane toads that I killed that I'm going to hell. I'm going to cane toad hell.

Yeah. One cane toad is the amount of good karma as Mount Ushud flipped on its top. I genuinely do feel bad that that was fucked up. I wish I could back the wheels of time.

That's fair. Yeah, I think... Yeah, I used to collect toads, worms, and moths as a child. I never killed many toads, to be honest. I never... I felt a great shame when I would accidentally step on one or run over one in a car or something like that. Well, now I do. Yeah. Ever since I... Like, before... And this is turning into, like, a therapy session between me. It's okay, Jackson. You know, pouring this out. But, like...

I did it before I had the concept of death, and then after I had the concept of death, I was like, holy fuck, that's fucked up. And then I was just, like, over the top sad about any kind of, like, death I would cause to animals. Do you go hunting? This is, like, a weird segue. I do, yes. Yeah, I feel like that's got more of, like, a utilitarian purpose, right? Because you're actually...

using the thing that you want. Yeah, there's an argument for it for sure. There's a sound argument for it. You eat it and also there's a level of conservation. There's not many natural predators now. Our fault, obviously, but yeah, it's definitely, there's a utilitarian justification for sure.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I'm just, yeah, I wish I didn't do it to cane toads. All right, you can continue. Before we move on past cane toads, I actually bought two. Real easy to buy cane toads. Yeah, I wanted them as pets. I bought one and they sent me two. And I now understand why they are super invasive. They're illegal to buy in the state that I was in.

And I released him and now there's a huge cane toad problem. At around seven years old, Amelia had her first taste of flying when she built a ramp on the roof of her family's tool shed with the aid of her uncle. She took up a wooden box to the top of the ramp and hopped in, sliding down and flew off the roof. One broken box, a busted lip and destroyed dress later, Amelia screamed in delight to her sister, it's just like flying.

The concepts of soaring through the air captivated her immediately. Gliders and airships, dirigibles and zeppelins. What the fuck's a dirigible? I've never even seen that word in my life. I have never heard of that word either. What is a dirigible? Is that an airship? I guess so. Because it's got an airship next to it. Why have I never heard this word before to describe airships? It is. It's just a zeppelin.

Dirigible. Dirigible. It's kind of crazy to me how futuristic airships look now, and they were literally the first concept of flying, really. Yeah, until one of them things popped and caught fire. Yeah, we can make them without popping anymore, it's just they're kind of useless. Yeah, I still want to pop them though. Yeah, they look fun. Let's see.

Gliders and airships were already a thing at the time, and Amelia no doubt was inspired by them. In her young years, the Earhart family struggled financially. Amelia and her sister lived with their grandparents while her parents moved into a small house in an attempt to gain some stable ground. It wasn't all bad, as Amelia would spend hours in a large family library where she discovered her love for reading, owing to many of the...

Owing to the many books her grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis, had amassed in his lengthy career as a judge, lawyer, and US District Attorney and state legislator of Kentucky.

So she came from a prominent family then. Nepo baby! Nepo baby! She only flew because of nepotism. Take that, women. Your hero has been destroyed by us. She doesn't deserve it. Yeah, that's all lies. She's definitely not a nepo. I guess nepotism was a really popular... It was probably worse back then at the turn of the 19th century or 20th century. Worse as in more prevalent? Yeah, probably, because there's just less people.

Maybe, yeah. And more, wait, is there more disparity between wealth now than there was then? Like, I feel like people were probably, like the 1% were probably richer than, no, it can't be. I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. But it said her family struggled financially here, so maybe her grandparents didn't want to support them.

I don't know, dude. That seems crazy. Her family struggled financially, but her grandfather was a judge. Had a library? Yeah, he had a fucking library. He owned books? I was so poor, I only had a small library. It was mahogany and not walnut. I think owning books back in the early 1900s was a sign of nobility and wealth. No one else owned books. I agree. I think that's true.

Do you think that owning books now is a sign of nobility? No, it's a sign of you being a giant nerd. Am I right? Ah, fuck. You got me, you bastard. You got me, you bastard.

I say that as someone who read Twilight in high school. Oh, wow. That's crazy. That's next level. Please continue. I'm bringing up too many repressed memories in this episode. Continue, please. She lived with her grandparents until she was 12 when she moved back in with her parents who had managed to get their own lives back on track. Life was good for a few years until 1914 when she took a little trip down to Colonel Jackson in Miami, Mississippi.

When the family realized that Edwin had a serious problem with alcohol, he lost his job and attempted to get sober, but struggled. Around this time, Amelia's grandmother passed and left their large estate to her daughter. They decided to sell the grandparents' house with all of its furniture. They were continuously concerned about Amelia's father burning through the money they had inherited.

This period, the calm before the storm, was ostensibly the end of Amelia's innocent childhood. Okay, well that makes sense why they struggled financially then. Yeah, they were insane. If her father was a booze hound. Fucking booze hound, dude. He was probably drinking shoeies. Am I right?

Yeah. Oh, I, I, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. He was an honorary Australian. Yes, sir. Um, life was turbulent after this. Her father was in a revolving door of employment, which ended up with Amelia, her mother and her sister moving to the Congo. Just kidding. It says Chicago. I just couldn't read it. It's too far away.

The transition wasn't... Imagine if she just out-of-pocket moved to the middle of Africa. It's like, what's that cartoon with the redhead? It was on Nickelodeon. Fuck. She talked to animals. Shit, I don't know. Eliza Doolittle or whatever the fuck its name is. I don't fucking know. Nigel Thornberry? Yeah, Nigel Thornberry. That's the one I'm thinking of. That guy? Yeah. The little brother. Yeah. Little Frank or whatever his name was.

Yeah. Jim? Let's see. The transition wasn't easy. She was a loner at school, but she was still incredibly ambitious and determined to make something of herself. She was going to be successful and dominate in whatever field she chose, and she was interested in a lot. Film production, management, engineering, and more. Her father's alcoholism had a lasting impact on Amelia's desire for independence, and her determination to forge her own path were shaped, in part,

by witnessing her father's struggles and the family's financial uncertainty stemming from them. Damn, imagine that. Like, if her father wasn't like a raging alcoholic, she may have never flown and women would not have this enormous accomplishment. Yep, she'd have been normal. Women's rights might be owed to him being an alcoholic somehow. That's crazy. Because of the butterfly effect.

The butterfly effect. That's what I'm talking about. Dude, maybe that has to do with you killing them cane toads too. We're back on the cosmic scales. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. We're out here getting nebulous on this episode of the Red Thread. Yeah, maybe if I never killed enough cane toads, the thorn berries wouldn't have been made into a show. And then you wouldn't have gotten your impression so perfectly.

Let's see. After graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915, she attended Ogun School in Pennsylvania the following year. In her second year, she visited Toronto, Canada, where she ended up staying to assist as a nurse aide in a military hospital for injured soldiers during World War I. While handing out medicine and food, she would overhear the pilots talking about flying and their experiences. A decade after her first time seeing an aircraft, she had an experience that would change the trajectory of her life.

Amelia was attending a stunt flying exhibition with a good friend. One of the stunt pilots noticed Amelia and her friend staring up in awe. They were in an isolated clearing and the pilot had assumedly decided to dive towards them in an attempt to scare them. Amelia stood her ground, scared but noticeably excited as she felt the plane whoosh past. Her heart was beating. Her skin was prickling with adrenaline. She knew she had just witnessed her life's dream to be in that pilot seat. Maybe that pilot was genuinely attempting to kill her.

eaten by coconut crabs five years later. And then there's a quote here from Amelia Earhart on her experience at the stunt flying exhibition. And she said, I did not understand it at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by. That was the Red Baron. That was the Red Baron in that little red plane. He flew all the way over from Germany just to inspire Amelia to become a pilot. And he drove past and he started making pizzas. Yeah.

That's what he does now. He's up to pizza making. Yeah. But anyways, Amelia and her father attended an aerial meetup in December of that year, a few days after Christmas in California. She was keen and persuaded her dad to ask about flying lessons and passenger flights. She lucked out and booked a $10 passenger flight with a man named Frank Hawks. That's an interesting name. Yeah, it's a cool name. That's a fucking cool name. Hawks is... Frank Hawks. I wish my last name was Hawks. That's so fucking cool. Just call me Hawks.

And he's a pilot too. Yeah, exactly. I fly planes. That 10 minutes in the air sealed her fate. In the air, flying was where she was born to be. A few weeks later, she asked Netta Snook, an incredible pioneer aviator in her own right, to be her instructor. What are these names? All these names sound made up. This sounds like a fantasy novel. Netta Snook. So that's a woman as well, flying a plane? What the fuck?

Yeah, so she wasn't the first. Well, yeah, Amelia wasn't the first woman to fly a plane. I was lied to. I thought she was the first and last. That's what I thought. Yeah, they made it illegal after she crashed. They're like, see? No more. See? We told you this would happen. Yeah, bunch of white guys in big powdered wigs making decisions. See, we told y'all.

No, yeah, she wasn't the first to fly a plane. She was the first to fly, like, to push the record of how far she flew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, without stopping. She died, though. But anyways...

Let's see. In the air flying . The deal was $500 for 12 hours flying, which works out to around $8,000 today. She worked multiple jobs all around the clock, saving every cent to continue her lessons. She chopped off most of her hair to match the other female aviators. A practice done due to the planes.

of the time being an open cockpit. She also dedicated her free time and all her effort into improving her skills. Wait, I know the planes were open cockpit, but how did they stop them from like getting hit by like birds and shit? Because I know like...

Current planes have that issue where the windshields get smashed in by bird strikes and the jets blow up because birds fly into them and shit like that. I can't imagine flying with an open cockpit and not being at risk of being hit by a random bird. I think they're going slower, a lot slower. I believe that's a better... That's a better... The birds can get out of the way easier when they're going a lot slower.

Perhaps, but like cars hit birds and those are on the ground. Yeah, for sure. But also, you know, there's more of a reason for birds to be near where cars are instead of individual planes in the sky. So, but yeah, yeah.

I don't know. What about coconut crabs? Why are they involved in this? Yeah, the coconut crabs knew how to fly as well. They flew little coconuts around. That's a really funny thought. It's really cute. Shit, bud. Yeah, that's awesome. That's actually a good idea for a brand. Something about coconut crabs and airplanes and stuff flying. You could do an Amelia Earhart coconut crab flying.

Anyways, only six months later, she was able to buy her first plane, a secondhand two-seater chromium yellow Kenner Airster for $2,000. $37,000 today. How the fuck did she make so much money? I mean, she had a dead grandmother, remember, who was a state legislator. Oh, right, inheritance. That's right, yeah. Nepotism yet again. She nicknamed it the Canary. She should have nicknamed it the Nepotism.

I'm disappointed by this story. Yeah, the Nepo Baby. She's been nicknamed the Nepo Baby. She's flying the... She flew... This was... Okay, here you go. She nicknamed it the Nepo Baby, and the Nepo Baby was the first plane that Amelia Earhart set the world record to as the first female to reach an altitude of 14,000 feet in 1922. The Nepo Baby. Interesting. New fact. New fact. Hello, I'm Mr. Information. I'm Mr. Information. Meet my wife, Miss Information. Yeah.

Update the Wikipedia right now. Change the canary to the nepo baby. This is my wife. Misinformation. Her rack is huge. Are we being too harsh on Amelia Earhart? I think maybe a little bit. I feel like she's amazing. Yeah, it's like, what the fuck? I mean, compared to especially compared to us.

Oh, yeah. I was actually going to ask that. Do you think she would have been a YouTuber if she was born in this generation? No, no, no, definitely not. No, definitely not. She would have been too cool for that.

She'd be actually making a difference in the world No she'd be actually making a difference in the world I still think like that kind of person It doesn't matter what period of time they're in They're always going to be that kind of daredevil Pushing the line forward So she would have been probably like a She would have been like a part of the Red Bull stunt group Or something doing insane shit like jumping Jumping from a plane that's in space And like free falling to earth From the newest highest height Some crazy shit that would have been mind blowing

Either that or she'd be on the other side. She'd be like, like, uh, she'd be that guy who got launched into space to try to disprove the globular earth and he died. Maybe she'd be like that. Okay. You know? Or maybe, maybe she'd be tending over her open range, uh, coconut crab farm. That would be an interesting other life, to be honest. Um,

She was able to afford the canary. Oh, this is when it talks about the affording of the canary. She was able to afford the canary. It wasn't the Nepo baby. Due to her inheritance from her grandmother, as well as her working multiple jobs, primarily as a social worker, but also as a photographer, truck driver, and stenographer. See, she was a good person as well. She was a social worker and shit. She's way better than us. Yeah, we suck, dude. Those cosmic scales are all out of whack.

The following year, she obtained her pilot's license, making her the 16th female in the United States to do so. Damn! Only 16? What are you the 16th male to do anything at? Nothing. Yeah, probably really nothing, to be honest. Maybe something candy related. Maybe I could be. Maybe. 16th Caleb to open a candy company.

Maybe the top 16 Calibs to own candy companies that have done more than one flavor a week in the last three months. That's a good list to be on. There's something out there.

The next eight years were up and down, Jackson. A failed investment in her inheritance from her grandmother withered away. She decided to sell the canary in favor of a Kissel Goldbug car in yellow. She was also suffering with the long side effects from contracting the Spanish flu before resulting in multiple sinus operations to try and gain some relief.

That's true. That happened in what, 1917 or 1918 or something like that? Yeah, that was that century's COVID. She had long flu. Long Spanish flu. Yeah, long Spain. She had that long Spain.

She didn't stop her interest in aviation altogether as she moved to Massachusetts in 1925 and joined the American Aeronautical Society in Boston, where she was elected the vice president. She expressed her passion for aviation by writing a column in the local paper, and she secured a job working for Kenner Aircraft. She was well-known in the local area, even piloting the first official flight out of Denizen Airport. That's extremely impressive.

It is. Even before we get into the record-breaking stuff, she was a very accomplished woman. She came... Well, she kind of had like a... Obviously, she inherited some stuff, which does add in a little bit of nepotism. I still think she earned most of it herself, it seems like, with the stories that we're reading right now. And her own personal family struggled financially. So I think a lot of her success can be owed to the fact that she

she was just that dedicated to accomplishing the things she accomplished. I don't think these are necessarily things that nepotism could have given her. No, no, no. Also, I think the nepotism thing is like if it's not in a family-owned business or if there's any real level of work involved, you got one strike luckier. It's possible for things to happen that are more fortuitous than having a father that

know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody or whatever. And I'm not even, I have zero nepotism at all. Like my family is fucking literally nothing at all. My family made me hunt cane toads. Yeah. I mean, I'm sitting,

Yeah, I'm fucking sitting where I grew up and it is, it smells like shit. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. It is absolutely gorgeous, but most places on Earth are gorgeous when there's not a lot of stuff to do or, uh... Not a lot of stuff taking up space. Yeah, life can suck and people can be very sad and it will still be beautiful no matter what all around. Oh, that's beautiful. That was encouraging. But yeah, I feel like if there was a nepotism angle to this, she would have done something other than just flying. Like, this seems like a

something that would only have been accomplished by her being extremely dedicated herself and gaining the skills necessary to be able to fly this effectively and push the line forward. It's not something that nepotism would have really accomplished. If it was nepotism, she would have just taken over as US district attorney or something, you know? Or a judge or a lawyer. All the things that her family had experience in. Yeah, I think the Nepo argument, most of the time I've heard it is just like, it's fucking nonsense, but definitely exists for sure.

It does, but yeah. All right. Take this one, my brother.

Yep. Amelia takes the Atlantic Ocean, which is that dumb little ocean next to the east coast of America. It's pathetic. It's a whiny little ocean. Nothing like the Chad Pacific Ocean off my coast, you bitches. Yeah. With your Atlantic Ocean. Nonsense. One sunny afternoon in April 1928, Amelia was working when a call came through for her. She initially brushed it off, disinterested and busy with the tasks at hand.

The man on the other end was insistent enough for Amelia to not immediately hang up the phone. The man began to list off references and a stunned Amelia went from confused to very, very excited.

The question came through, how would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic? Without hesitation or thought, Amelia said yes. For bold, unafraid and ambitious Amelia, this was not an opportunity she was going to miss. The wheels began to turn and she flew to New York to meet up with the coordinators of the project. There was book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam,

That name sounds familiar. I'm not sure if I just, because I edited this document, well obviously, but like the name Putnam, is that like a prestigious family in America or something? Yeah, I recognize that, but I can't pinpoint where it is. Yeah, neither. Anyway, George P. Putnam, who later went on to become Amelia's husband, pilot Wilmer Stultz, and co-pilot and mechanic Lewis Gordon.

The word about this undertaking was already rampant with news publications across the world talking about the risky and dangerous flight Amelia was about to undertake, which makes sense considering her husband was literally a book publisher and publicist. So he would have been able to get this news into news publications pretty easily, I would imagine. Three people had previously died while trying to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, which obviously shows how dangerous this was. Holy shit, three people.

So wait, wait, just to interrupt you there. So three people had died and there were 16 female pilots. Yes. So that's crazy.

Yeah, actually that's a very short list of female pilots. Like let's say there were 16 and three of them may have, because unless they were flying unlicensed, I guess that's a possibility, right? I don't know. True. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like if they were flying across the Atlantic Ocean, they would have been licensed though. Anyway, that is a small list of people that would have then died from trying this accomplishment.

Amelia didn't let this deter her. They flew out from Trespassy Harbour. That's a cool name. Oh, wait, it's Trapassy. Never mind. I thought it was Trespassy. Trapassy Harbour in Newfoundland, Canada on June 17th, 1928. They're playing a Fokker F7 called Friendship. That's so...

That's wholesome, I guess. Called friendship. Carried them across the ocean for 20 hours and 40 minutes where they then arrived safely at Burryport, Wales to a parade and even when they returned to a reception at the White House held by then-president Calvin Coolidge. Do you know that guy? Yeah, he was a loser. Why? Give me some facts about Calvin Coolidge. He didn't do shit, man. He didn't do shit. He didn't do shit. He was a piece of shit. He didn't do shit. He was handsome. That's it. I think that's the right guy. Yeah.

It might be someone else. Did he get a second term? No, he got assassinated. Did he actually? Are you joking? No, no, I'm making that up. He said, so one thing though, I do have to, I'm sorry, Jackson, I've got to circle back. We've got, I have to, I have to correct you. I have to correct you. You said something wrong. You said something wrong. You said newfound land, Canada. Oh, is that not pronounced that way?

It is, I mean, you'd think being an English speaker, it would be pronounced Newfoundland, right? But I know a bunch of people from that place and they all get really angry if you say it that way. You have to say Newfoundland. Oh, so I've angered? Newfoundland. Newfoundland. You just angered Newfoundland. That is correct. Yes. Newfoundland. So I've now made an enemy of the Newfoundland men. Yes. Yes. The goofy Newfies. Yep. The goofy Newfies.

So rest in peace your reputation there. Let's be real. New Finland. New Finland? Yeah, New Finland. It's goofy as shit, to be honest. I'm on your side, but at the same time... I really wish in these situations they would just change the spelling to accommodate me. Just change the spelling. Just spell it how it sounds. New Finland. Okay, thank you. Did I pronounce everything else right?

Yeah, you're good. You're good. I'm really good at pronouncing stuff, so you're good. Okay. So she had done it. The first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She was a hero. Amelia didn't actually fly the plane. She wasn't able to, as she didn't know how to fly the particular aircraft. Wait, so she didn't fly the... How is this an accomplishment? She was just a passenger? Well, what the fuck? She was a damn cop. She was a pirate cop. She was in the passenger seat and she still had a parade at the White House? Yeah.

Interesting. Wait, why? Okay. Yeah, that makes no sense. I'd be like, I could do that. Let's be real. This is breaking my whole concept of Amelia Earhart. What the fuck? When interviewed after she described herself like being a sack of potatoes, just excess baggage, but expressed her desire to do it alone. She can't. If she can't fly the plane, she's just going to be sitting in the passenger seat while the plane flies itself.

The flight, which intended to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo transatlantic flight of the year prior, was more publicity stunt than a groundbreaking woman's achievement. Something that Earhart didn't like. As she described it, her role on the flight was primarily to keep flight logs while Wilmer Stoltz and Lewis Gordon both flew the route. Wow. Wait, so I'm guessing this isn't the one that she's well known for then. This isn't the one that... Doesn't seem like it. Yeah. Because I don't know who Wilmer is and I've never heard of Louie.

Yeah. I don't know who Calvin Coolidge is. Yeah, fuck that guy. This is a short one. You can take this one, and then I'll take the long one afterwards. The woman who couldn't stop soaring. Her love for flying had never gone away, but after this adventure, and perhaps after fleeing a reputation she needed to maintain, feeling a reputation she needed to maintain, flying became her whole life. She began by entering the Cleveland Woman's Air Derby, where she placed third and gained the nickname Powderpuff Derby.

She could not, however, shake the idea of flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. If she could achieve this, she would be the second person to ever do it, man or woman, to achieve such a thing.

Amelia and her husband, Gorg, began to secretly plan the endeavor. Amelia always described Gorg and their relationship as a partnership, as she was incredibly independent and she was a woman as well, with George himself matching her energy perfectly. Wait, so he was also a woman? He was also an independent woman? He was an independent woman as well. A very brave independent woman. Yeah. Yeah.

Their relationship was quite unconventional for the time. Before marrying George in 1931, Earhart presented him with a prenuptial agreement of sorts where she expressed her desire to keep the marriage open to both of their personal freedoms. In a letter to George written before their wedding, she stated that she wanted to avoid medieval code of faithfulness and requested that he not expect her to obey traditional marital rules. She also insisted that they reconsider the terms of their marriage after a year.

This all speaks to a woman who is very much her own person, a person unafraid to do things differently that meant she could be her own person. That's so funny. I would like to reconsider the terms of the marriage. What is this, a business meeting? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, that seems kind of weird.

She was a powerful woman and independent and stuff, but I feel like what's the point of even getting married then, right? Yeah, you might as well not. It's more of a power move to just not, it seems like, instead of treating it like some kind of weird... What does she mean by medieval code of faithfulness? Does she mean like George needed to be a cuck from this point on? Like, was she being with other dudes? Or faithfulness? I don't know. Yeah.

I'm not, I really don't know. I think maybe just like the perspective of marriage then may have been literally like, when you marry a woman, it's just like she's your slave. Yeah, basically. Like forever, you're just a forever servant, free servant. You can beat her and stuff. So maybe that's what it was. It was probably more so along the lines of what's just sort of

uh yeah that that concept of faithfulness not like not like relationship fidelity we love each other we support each other and i don't just cook and clean and and am a glorified brood mother for you uh which is absolutely goes in line with amelia's uh previous life like everything we've read about her yep um okay good for her

All right. And then on May 20th, 1932, Amelia took off from Harbor Grace in Newfoundland with her at Navigator set for Paris. The flight wasn't an easy one, even considering that. Did I just start reading your part? No, no, no. You're good. Okay, good. Thank you. Oh, I was about to say, oh, my Lord. What the hell? I'm sorry about that. You're about to end it all on that phone. You got to forgive me, bud. The power of Christ compels me. Sorry, I just whipped myself.

The flight wasn't an easy one, even considering the challenge inherent to flying a propeller plane for 15 plus hours over an entire ocean. Harsh, icy and windy conditions topped with mechanical problems forced Amelia to land the plane in Ireland in a random farmer's yard. But still, she had done it. She was now the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and an incredible achievement that will stand the test of time for all of human history.

She was recognized. Yeah. It did stand the test of time. We're talking about it a hundred years later, nearly a hundred years later, and we're being very respectful. She was the first one. She owes the Atlantic Ocean now. That's hers. She a pimp. She a straight up G. And I bet when she got home, she gave fucking, she gave, she gave George a good wallop. Put him in his place. Yeah.

George was expected to have dinner on the table by the time she got home. She walks back in the house and he's got a baby. He's nestling a baby and he's got a large... He's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that movie where he's got a baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She flew from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California, and it took her 18 hours and 16 minutes in her Lockheed Vega 5C. Okay, well, wait a second. Wait a second. Hawaii? She flew from Hawaii? That's not the entire Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is like halfway across the ocean. You skipped half of it. F her, dude. Fly from Australia. F her, dude. Yeah. So 18 hours from Hawaii to California. Yeah, that doesn't count.

Surely. Actually, that would be so imagine flying in the sky just 18 hours. Fucking it's the it's the early 1900s. You're just in an open cockpit. There's shit flying past you. There's no land and you're just like flying to the air. Oh, you're just screaming, just screaming, trying to stay awake. Dude, I can't stay awake. Like, yeah. Holy shit. I feel like you probably stay awake if the cockpit was open. I completely forgot that. That's crazy. Actually, 18 hours in an open cockpit. Yeah.

What was it? Lockheed Vega 5C. It may have been closed in by that point. Lockheed Vega 5C. Yeah, this looks like a closed cockpit. Alright, well once again she's been proven as a fraud. I'm just kidding. We're spending this entire episode just diminishing this incredible woman's achievements. Removing them systematically.

This flight marked her as the first aviator, man or woman, to achieve the solo crossing of the Pacific Ocean. When she landed, a crowd rushed to her plane in celebration. She joked that she was happy to be home again, despite the overly enthusiastic crowd. But Emilia wasn't done. She was the sort of person who would never be done. There would always be something bigger, greater, and riskier that Emilia aimed for. Her new challenge?

She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. Sorry. I had one of those inappropriate laugh moments. I thought about the end of the video. The end of the story. You remember the coconut crabs? Where this was all going. I remember her looking over at her dead co-pilot.

No, but yeah, I mean, to be fair, like it says here, she was the sort of person who would never be done. This was only ever going to end one way. This was inevitable, yeah. Yeah. Which is both sad, but also like incredibly fucking cool and inspiring, honestly. Like having that kind of grit and determination to make something of yourself to this degree, even if it means death.

The first attempt. Amelia began to prepare as she approached her 40th birthday. The planned flight would be around 47,000 kilometers, which is 29,000 miles for you Americans. For comparison, her Pacific flight, the one from Hawaii to Oakland, California, had been around 3,875 kilometers. So yeah, this was a step up. Believe it or not, the earth is large and round and not flat. It's

She was given funding from Purdue University to purchase a Lockheed Electra 10A plane for $50,000. It needed some modifications, specifically extra fuel tanks for the long journey it was destined to make. I think she was still stopping a lot. I mean, you can't fly around the planet even today, I think, without jetliners. There's no fuel capacity for that. So, yeah, she would have needed to stop multiple times, but I guess they made the extra fuel tanks just to make

Make less frequent stops. The next year consisted of tests flying and preparing and ultimately her first navigator, Harry Manning, proved to have pretty poor navigation skills when Amelia needed someone who was almost pinpoint perfect. Because yeah, this was back in the day when they actually navigated by looking at the stars and also just looking outside of the plane. I doubt they had good instruments to read heading and stuff, right? Or even maps. So it would have been literally looking out of the plane. Yeah, I don't even know how...

Yeah, it would just be the most I could ever see is you have like just a regular ass land nav. You have a compass and then fucking maps. But, you know, if the weather's bad, it would not be possible to navigate properly. I mean, helicopters still crash because of that now. Yeah. Navigation is one of the hardest parts of flying and stuff. Well, I don't think that was a navigation issue, was it? That was like the actual instruments.

Yeah, I believe it was instruments and related to some kind of inclement weather type like fog or some shit in a mountain. Yeah, I think it was fog. But yeah. Yeah.

She settled on Fred Noonan to take over as, or to add his navigation skills, a ship captain who was experienced in sea and air navigation, having previously worked for Pan Am, which is a now long deceased air travel company, I guess. Pan Am. It was around until like the 80s, I think, and then it was shut down.

Her first attempt was, however, ultimately a bit of a failure. They left March 17th, 1937 with the plan for Fred to help navigate Amelia from Hawaii to Howland Island. And then Harry Manning, the not very good navigator in parentheses here. Harry Manning's catching strays from my girlfriend. I guess he offended her with these lack of navigation skills. Harry Manning would help her to Australia where she would then tackle the rest solo.

However, during takeoff at Luke Field on Ford Island at Pearl Harbor, something went wrong. The plane veered off the runway, ground looped and crashed. The exact cause of the crash remains debated, but the general consensus is that a tire blowout occurred during takeoff, causing loss of control. After the crash that damaged the aircraft, Amelia regrouped with her team. The dream was not over to her, despite the major setback. She rushed to get the plane rebuilt, secured more funding and re-planned her route.

She was now going to fly from west to east instead, a change brought on from the changes in global wind and weather patterns. Harry Manning left the project. Was he the bad one? Yes, he was. Yes. Harry Manning left the project, leaving just Fred and Amelia, who on June 1st left Miami to embark on an attempt in number two, on attempt number two, which Amelia herself claimed would be her retirement flight. So, yeah, she changed directions. So she was flying...

uh so across america first so she started on the east no the west coast of america no she no she started on the east coast of america in miami and then she flew down to south america across to africa up through asia and then down to australia that was the route and then back across the pacific to the west coast of america i'll take this next bit as well interesting short gotcha yeah go ahead bud

Amelia Earhart's final flight. And I'll take this one because I don't want you laughing, obviously. After multiple stops along the way, Amelia and Fred arrived in Ley, New Guinea on the 29th of June. 35,000 kilometers had already been completed and three days later they set off on a 20-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean to Howard Island. So they were like right at the end then because they had done 35,000 kilometers. So they were so close to the finish line. They just needed to cross the Pacific.

There was over 4,000 litres of gas in the tank for the massive trek, as they carried more than they needed just in case of any emergencies. The US Coast Guard Cutter ship, Itasca, was ordered to sit just off Howland Island and was Amelia's radio contact. Other ships were also stationed at the island and had every light on their ship lit up as the island they would be landing on was so small it was necessary for Fred and Amelia in order to identify it.

Yeah, how the fuck do you land at night on a remote island in the 1930s without any kind of, like, instrument guidance or, and it's dark outside? Like, how the fuck do people do this shit? Just pure instinct. That's crazy, man. That's crazy. We should do that. No, I'm good.

As they flew through the night, the pair was surrounded by dark skies and rain. Fred's favorite form of navigation was celestial, but in these conditions, it proved to be somewhat impossible. And celestial is, for people that don't know, that's like... Yeah, that's what the fucking ships, the naval ships of the past used to use to travel the oceans. They look up at the stars and stuff, and that's how they guide themselves.

Which is cool. We need to go back to that. Everyone delete Google Maps, delete your GPS and stuff, and let's only use Celestial now to drive places. Also, Sunstones. Vikings had those stones that you could hold up in foggy and overcast weather, and you could see where the sun was, so you could see where the sun was regardless of the fog impeding vision. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. How did it work? Did it just glow? The stones glow if it was in the path of the light?

Yeah, I can't remember exactly what the scientific explanation was, but it's like you can see just using the actual transparent rock, whatever the fuck it is, you can see the outline of the sun easier where you wouldn't be able to see it in an entire quadrant of the sky just because it's so diffused.

Is it the same concept as just using a magnifying glass? Like the Vikings were burning their eyes out, holding up these little glasses to tell where the sun is. It was just magnifying directly in their eyes? I'm not sure.

Potentially. That would make sense. And like refraction. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I'm not sure though. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a big science guy. And I'm not a Viking. So Amelia sent a message to Itasca to take bearings for them. But all the transmissions that came through were full of static and unable to be heard. A horrifying realization came in the early morning on board the Itasca when they realized that the system was not and could not be tuned to the signal on the aircraft. There was nothing they could do about it, but sit and hope for the best.

And as we all know, that did not pan out. At 7.42 a.m., Amelia sent another plea on the radio. Quote, we must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low, being unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet, which is very low, I think. Again, attempts were made to reply, but nothing was reaching Amelia or Fred. An hour later, the last message from them was received saying, we are running north and south. The

The ship attempted to use Morse code, but they were unable to figure out the pair's location, and then they never heard from them again. There's a little... Can you open this clip here? Yeah, I thought the last message was, help, these coconut crabs mean business. That's so fucked up. I'm not adding on to that one. Is this a video I'm supposed to watch?

Yeah, let's just run this for a little bit. So this here is a clip from the 1930s, 1937, about Amelia Earhart's disappearance on television and stuff. Because it's such a like...

She was so much cooler back then. Amelia Earhart. How do they make their voices sound like that? I have no idea. They had to work hard on it. What happened to those people with those voices these days? Where are they? What are they doing? The transatlantic accent? We should bring it back, Jackson. We should. I don't think I'd be able to.

Whoa, look how they took off from the fucking planes back then. Damn! Little slingshots. Meh, see? Meh.

Yeah. All right. I love videos like that. The world was so cool back then. Everything felt like so. I don't know. It's roast into glasses, but I love that aesthetic and stuff. It's cool. Yeah. The world was quite aesthetic back then.

It was a vibe. What followed was one of the most extensive air and sea searches ever conducted throughout naval history. It started just an hour after their last message with radio contact. Itasca began their heading north after assuming that's where they would be, but the terrible weather forced them to cut their efforts short. The Navy very quickly got involved, launching seaplanes and battleships to aid in the search effort. They searched and searched for weeks as news headlines began to circulate. One newspaper declaring...

And this is the headline. Chances of finding Pear placed at one in a million. So get your bets in now. Those are good odds. You make a lot of money. Yeah. The days of searching dragged on with everyone desperate for any signs of Amelia or Fred, but it was fruitless. The search was stopped on July 19th after $4 million was invested in the efforts, but ultimately absolutely no evidence of them was ever conclusively found.

Amelia's husband George paid for a private search by local authorities but his efforts were also unsuccessful this cost a lot of money and in order to continue the search he wanted to become the trustee of Amelia's estate so that he could fund her recovery I mean I get it but also that looks sus right immediately like yeah just give me her estate I'm gonna find my wife there see but also did they not have any suspicions when his next his new wife afterwards was a giant coconut crab

Normally you have to wait seven years to be declared dead in absentee, but he asked the courts to waive this considering the circumstances. This was approved by the courts and Amelia was officially declared dead in July 1939. Yeah, I mean, I get it, right? Like he wanted the money to conduct the search and stuff because he probably didn't have his own money because he was a stay-at-home dad.

Yeah, stay-at-home husband and father, father and husband of a coconut crab with a stinger missile. Who was suspiciously holidaying in Hawaii at the time. Strange, very odd, unexpected, let's be real. Okay, so these are the main conspiracy theories. I guess, I don't know if they're conspiracy theories, more so just like potential answers to what happened to Amelia Earhart, what people believe.

So the first one is she was captured by the Japanese. One of the main theories surrounding Amelia Earhart's disappearance is that she and Fred were captured by the Japanese. The thought or the belief is that they flew off course and ended up over the Japanese held territory in the Pacific, where they were then captured and possibly executed.

Japan was heavily engaged in the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The relationship between Japan and the United States wasn't openly hostile, but it was certainly tense in the lead up to World War II. You think of Japan nowadays and you think of anime and cool stuff, but the Empire of Japan was a completely different...

structure really they weren't as nice as as the anime would have you believe during that time period so it's pretty believable that you know if someone did crash land in japan with the tensions between the two countries at that time then they possibly it's like what the relationship with north korea is at the moment right like not not openly hostile as in like we're not warring against each other but there are definitely like diplomatic issues between the two countries

The evidence for this particular theory lies in a photograph said to be taken on Geluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands, possibly by a US spy. It depicts a bunch of people standing on a dock. And the picture is below, by the way, Caleb. I'm going to be putting it up on screen, but you can see the picture below with little magnifying glasses showing the people in question.

There is what looks to be a female facing the other way crouched down that looks suspiciously like Amelia Earhart, according to those who believe the theory. Another male to the left looks a little like Fred. And then to the far right, it showed what many think could be their plane in the water.

The theory suggests that after failing to locate Howard Island and running low on fuel, Erha and Noonan, Edward Noonan, might have, may have landed on the Marshall Islands, which were under Japanese control at the time. Proponents of the theory believe that the pair would have been taken prisoner then by the Japanese under suspicion of spying for the United States. And then they were transported to Saipan where they were then either executed or later died in captivity.

So you see the little pictures here. What do you think? Do you think that woman in the middle looks like Amelia Earhart? I don't know how you could possibly tell. Yeah, it seems like fucking nonsense. I'll be real, but it's fun to think about. It is fun. Yes, but it's a fun idea than them just crashing. Although not fun for them if they were obviously taken to a concentration camp style thing.

Yeah, that would be really unfortunate. But it makes sense, though. I mean, it was a tough time for the Japanese Empire. They were...

kind of assholes. So, it makes sense. Yeah, I could absolutely see them doing something like this. There's no denying that there was tension between Japan and America in the 1930s, but could this really be them? The theory came to light in 2017, which is recent. Holy shit, this only came up in 2017, when a documentary on history, uh,

the History Channel, called Amelia Earhart, The Lost Evidence, broadcasted this image as possible evidence that the case was closed and solved. But the reception was very mixed. A man named Kota Yamano, a Japanese historian and blogger, became interested and wanted to investigate this new evidence. On his blog post, he showed that the photograph actually came from a travel book

That was published in 1935, which was two years before Amelia and Fred began their flight across the world. It only took him half an hour to find the origins of this photo. When later interviewed, Coda said, quote, I find it strange that the documentary makers didn't confirm the date of the photographer. I'm sorry, the date of the photograph or the publication in which it originally appeared. That's the first thing they should have done, which, yeah, good point. Good point. History Channel, uh,

I mean, what does the History Channel do these days? Don't they do like ghost hunting videos and stuff? They're not like the most reputable of sources anymore. Yeah, it's bullshit. Yeah, it's total nonsense. It's been nonsense for a long time. Yeah. I used to love watching the History Channel growing up though. Me too, and Discovery and the Military Channel and all that stuff. Yeah, Animal Channel or whatever the fuck it was called. Animal Planet, I think it was. Animal Planet.

It wasn't just Koda that had their suspicions. The National Archives also came out saying that the version of the photograph they had wasn't labeled with a date, thus they could not confirm if the image was from the correct year. Even the Aeronautics Department of the National Air and Space Museum came out and said it was just a blurry photograph and from the real evidence we have, Amelia was most likely very far away from the Marshall Islands.

Of course, they sent a lot of criticism to the History Channel, forcing them to cancel any upcoming runs of the documentary, and they announced it wouldn't make it to any streaming sites, and they have simply pretended that it never existed in the first place. That's awesome. Fuck them. That's the History Channel I know and love.

Although it had incorrect facts, there were talks of Marshallese locals claiming to have seen the pair on the island under Japanese custody, as well as US military personnel reporting hearing stories of two American flyers being held on Saipan. While the photograph is certainly unlikely to have been the pair, it is still ultimately possible that they were captured by the Japanese Empire, given secondhand accounts of what happened.

However, both the US and Japanese governments have both officially denied any evidence of the capture and the eyewitness testimonies cannot be corroborated. There's simply no evidence to lead much impact to the idea. I mean, the photograph. So I think this idea was something that had like existed for decades at this point. And then the photograph came out on that History Channel episode or whatever, leading more kind of support to the theory. But then obviously it was debunked pretty quickly.

What do you think? How likely out of 10 do you think that this one is? Wow. It makes sense from just like a vacuum perspective. You know, it's kind of where she was. She was in the area.

Japan, kind of a bunch of assholes. People have been known to crash their airplanes and the Japanese have taken them hostage, for example. George H. W. Bush, one of the presidents of the United States of America. Well, wait, that was during World War II, right? Was it? That was during World War II, yes. Yeah. And...

Yeah, I mean, there's just like a lot of that stuff has happened before. So it sort of makes sense. But at the same time, it's like, I feel like she probably just fucking crashed and exploded and died as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

I mean, I feel like if they did... We're a thousand feet! If they did take the Japanese government now would still have reports of that, surely. Unless they were operating so independently back in the Japanese Empire. Yeah, they probably would have said something about it. Yeah, there would have been no real point to leaving that private, I guess. Alright.

No, this one's a fun one. I remember this one. Some believe that Amelia survived the crash and returned to America where she lived under the name Irene Bolum, a New Jersey banker. The theory first gained traction in the 1970s when the novel Amelia Earhart Lives, written by Joe Gervais and Joe Klass, was released.

Why were they so set that Irene was Amelia? Apparently in the 1960s, Joe met Irene and had this sense that he knew her. She was an older version of Amelia. This set off a chain of deep research into Irene's life in the release of a controversial novel.

Evidence such as their similar appearances and Irene's background containing gaps of information were used to promote the theory. In particular, Joseph Gervais, the researcher and former U.S. Army Air Force major, claimed to have noticed Bolum's demeanor and way of speaking were similar to those of Earhart. Irene Bolum's background was a mystery.

With Bolum reportedly refusing to discuss certain details of her early life, and she was also a licensed pilot, which added fuel to the fire. Wait, so this guy just met this random woman and was like, you're Amelia Earhart, I'm writing a book about you. What an actual lunatic. Yes. You kind of look like this lady I want to...

And you're a pilot as well? There's not that many girl pilots. I'm going to write a book about you.

Here, how about this? Irene adamantly denied that she was Amelia, even suing for $1.5 million and submitting a large affidavit against the claim, including information on her private pilot's license and marriage certificate. The book was pulled off the market. The case was settled out of court. This didn't stop Joe, however. Of course not. Requesting permission to photograph and fingerprint her body after she died. Oh, Joe, no, Joe, stop. National Geographic, bro.

Bro, Joe is off the rails. He's unhinged. Joke. Yeah, that guy's fucked. That is crazy. Nat Geo hired a criminal forensic expert in 2006 to analyze photographs of Irene and Amelia, and they noted many facial differences and concluded the two were different people. On top of that, after Bolum's death in 1982, a thorough examination of her personal documents and life history revealed that she was born as...

Irene Madeline O'Crowley in 1904. This does not stop people, including the author, of still believing that Irene Boland was Amelia Earhart. What the fuck, Joe? What a fucking weirdo. What is the difference between stalking and being a passionate author? I think there's no difference here. I have no idea. He's asking her to fingerprint her body after she died, after she sued him. She was harassed by this guy, clearly, for a long period of time. Can I see the corpse? Can I have 15 minutes with the corpse? Joe, you've gone too far. What?

Alright, so there's a picture here of Amelia Earhart. There's a picture of her on the left and a picture of Irene Bolum on the right. So people in the audience. I mean, very obvious that that's just Amelia in a wig on the right. I mean, to be fair, they kind of do look similar, but there's a point where it becomes a bit unhinged to continue believing the theory. I don't know.

I went to a gun store the other day and this fella recognized me and he was like, "Are you the YouTuber guy? I'm not trying to be racist, but are you the YouTuber guy?" And I was unsure what he meant by "I'm not trying to be racist," but I think it's because what you're saying right now is that just white people look alike. I wasn't expecting racism to be brought into this.

These people don't look anything alike is what I'm saying. You're saying they don't look alike? They don't look anything alike. Like the bone structure kind of looks alike to me. I think they look like two white people. Two white ladies. That's it. That's all I'm getting. We'll see what the audience says. But I do have facial blindness and I'm not good at identifying facial similarities. I am shocking at it. The fact that I think they look alike probably means they look nothing alike, to be honest. I usually just have to flip my opinion on this kind of stuff.

But I'll take your word for it. Amelia looks like she got lip filler. She looked like she got lip filler. Yeah, but she's... Just kidding. This is 30 years after Amelia disappeared, so she'd look older. Is that your hang-up about why they look different? No, no, no. They just don't look anything alike at all. Their eyes are different. Their nose is different. Their eyebrows are different. Their cheekbones are different. Their chin is maybe... Maybe the only thing I could see is maybe their chin. Maybe. Bro, this is so fucking crazy. I thought every single thing that you just said was...

not true like i thought their eyes nose and like lips and and forehead and stuff were the same and then i thought the chin wasn't like the i was thinking like the chin and the jaw were the only things that didn't look the same am i just like busted yeah i i must have something wrong

Even the eyes are like a different shape entirely and totally different. I can't see it. What the fuck is wrong with me? I need to go to like a doctor or something to figure out what faces look like. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, the chin's the only thing to me that doesn't look the same. The nose is drastically different. The ears are different. I mean, even the forehead, like the canonical shape of the older woman is just drastically different. Yeah, yeah. I need to go to the doctor or something. And it's like not even an age thing.

Yeah, you should get that checked out. Can someone in the comments diagnose me what my problem is with faces? I clearly have something wrong with how I like interpret that information. Am I an alien? Am I like a reptile? That's going to be the next red thread mystery. Hello. These two humans look the same to me. All humans look the same. Am I right, OompaVille? Fellow human. All right. Take your favorite one. You love this one. Yes.

Okay, a castaway. Bones found in the Pacific Islands sparked the theory that Amelia and Fred could have landed on a remote island and then passed away due to starvation. That's hilarious. What do you mean? What do you mean that's hilarious? I just thought that it may, you know, I don't know. Just a banger line. There's something funny. Yeah, it's just fucking banger, dude. Who wrote this? A comedian?

Um, let's see. The bones found in 1940 by British colonial officer Gerald Gallagher on Nicaroro Island in the Republic of Kiribati were measured by a scientist in 1941. The report concluded they belonged to a man, and after the analysis, the bones were apparently misplaced, stored, or discarded at the Central Medical School in Fuji. How do you lose bones? Despite efforts by researchers, I don't fucking know. People do that shit all the time. They're always misplacing shit that's really important.

I lose like USB cables constantly, which is very annoying. Same. Yeah, dongles. Same. Losing bones and shit, that's fucking wild. Yeah, you're a freak if you do that. You weird-ass motherfucker.

But despite efforts by researchers and historians to locate the bones in the decades following, they have never been found. In 1998, the measurements of the data were reinvestigated, and it was here that they were concluded to actually be from a female, but from a possible European ancestry. And importantly, the bones apparently indicated the person was

of approximately the same height as Emilia. But then, 17 years later, the results were reinvestigated again, and the scientists in charge of the report said, no, the original conclusion was correct. The bones came from a male. And then they found out that they accidentally gave the bones to a giant, and he ground them into dust.

Accidentally, because people are always misplacing shit. Yeah, I don't know how they misplace this stuff, honestly. We probably wouldn't know if that was Amelia by now, if we still had the bones. You could perform DNA testing or something. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Damn those giants. Yeah, definitely. So I give up. But Gerald Gallagher did find a woman's shoe and a sex tent box. What's a sex tent box near the 13 human bones? I want to say it's something where you store nautical stuff.

Because isn't a sextant... Sextant. Oh, it's for navigation instruments. Okay. Because a sextant is like the little magnifying glass thing. Okay, I did not know that.

Um, Professor Jantz, the 1998 scientist who assessed the bones could have been Amelia's, that it could have been Amelia's, came out in defense of this investigation. He apparently used Amelia's clothes to compare the bones and also referred to a photo of her holding something to see the length of her arm bones compared to the ones he was measuring. He said everything added up and was consistent with Amelia in all respects. With the bones lost, this theory cannot be proven nor disproven.

However, people online believe Amelia crashed on the island with her only companions being the coconut crabs that called the island home.

Coconut crab mention. Specifically for you. Yes, sir. Are you an expert on the coconut crab theory? Is there an actual theory that the coconut crabs ate her or was it just the idea because she landed on this, potentially landed on this island and bones were found there? That's where the coconut crabs come from. Crabs, they're scavengers. They're scavengers. So if she died...

She would have been if she died out in the open in the exterior and nature had access to her No doubt coconut crabs had a fucking feast. Yeah, right So because sure because they're the only like scavengers on the islands, I would assume I guess yeah, it's possibly I don't know but coconut crabs likely coconut crabs How large are they? They're the big red ones aren't they together big? Yeah. Oh, these are these are enormous. Yeah. Yeah, they're scary. Oh

I think we have an island nearby. I think it's called like, I think it might be Christmas Island near, near Australia. That is just infested with coconut crabs. Uh, you can't like all the roads are just covered in coconut crabs. Um, maybe I'm thinking roads lead to coconut crab. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. I'll take the crash theory.

The theory I think most believe Amelia and Fred ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean where it now may lie 5,500 meters below the surface of the sea. I mean, we know this had to have happened considering they can't still be flying 80 years later. So they absolutely had to crash at some point or land somewhere, but we would have heard from them if they landed somewhere. So yeah, they did crash. We know that for sure.

We already know from her radio messages that their fuel was getting low and that they were struggling to determine their position and without communication they were left with little options. There is no real evidence to fully support the theory as their bodies of the planes have never been discovered but the most likely and logical outcome of a pilot lost at night and with dwindling fuel and no way to communicate with the outside world is that they will either crash into the ocean or onto an island.

The fact that the plane was never found in the area, nor wreckage, seems to suggest the crash occurred into the open ocean, which as we know from cases like MH370 makes it borderline impossible to locate evidence. Wait, do you think, so there wasn't plane wreckage found on that island, but do you think maybe they crashed into the ocean, the plane disintegrated, and then her body was washed ashore, which then the crabs feasted upon? Yeah, it makes sense, potentially.

That's a good way to combine our two favorite theories. Yeah, because there's no plane found on the island. And if she was just like... Right. If the bones were just on the beach, that would make sense, right? Because...

Like surely, I don't know. I think that's likely. The fact that the plane was never found in the area nor wreckage seems to suggest the crash occurred into the open ocean, which as we know from cases like MH370 make it borderline impossible to locate evidence. The plane they were flying had limited range, which is why they had to use Howland Island to refuel. The island was tiny and easy to miss than other stops. It was absolutely crucial that they make it to the island as they were flying in the dark and into headwinds that cost them fuel.

Fred was unable to use his celestial navigation skills and neither knew any Morse code to attempt to communicate with the ship at their target. Poor navigation on the ship along with their limited training on the equipment was not a good sign either. The mix of all these things probably like 99.9% chance

Probably caused them to run out of fuel and crash into the ocean. I'm leaving 0.01% chance in case they got like abducted by aliens or something completely wild. Right. Because we can't be completely sure. Right. They could have gone to space. Right. And then they're just floating out in space.

The mix of all these things probably caused them to run out of fuel and crash into the ocean, ending both of their lives. Or they landed safely and Amelia would go on to become one hell of a New York banker in that of Irene Bolan. That's also a possibility, I suppose. I don't know what happened to Fred in that situation, but that's what happened to Amelia slash Irene. So that's the end. Rest in peace. Yeah, rest in peace, Amelia and Fred, I guess. Fred gets missed in a lot of this because he wasn't... Fred Noonan. He wasn't a powerful woman.

uh what do you what do you call them edward at one point did i well one of them was named edward was one of them named edward i don't recognize an edward but i think maybe potentially okay uh there was no edward potentially that died it was only fred i think i just it's self-inserted that was fan fiction all right what do you think what do you think from your beautiful farm tell us what you think the uh like what your belief is that happened

I think she crashed into the ocean and washed ashore and was eaten by coconut crabs. Yeah, I think that's the most likely idea. And I like that because the bones, the bones, like why else would the bones be there? I mean, there could be a bunch of other crashes and stuff, but it doesn't seem to line up. It doesn't seem to line up. All right. Well, she definitely crashed. We know that. Yeah.

And those bones could have been her. I'm going to say that the Japanese got to her, though, just to add some diversity to our beliefs. What do you think? Comment down below. The Japanese took her in and then freed her after World War II, but she had to live as a New York banker for some reason. She's like a sleeper agent, a Japanese sleeper agent. She changed her name to Irene. Yep. Irene Bolam.

Alright, that's going to do it for this episode. She probably crashed. Big thank you to Amelia Earhart for breaking the barriers that she did and giving women like my girlfriend a historic moment to draw reflection from and inspiration from. I don't fucking know. I don't know what to say about this. I feel out of my element considering I'm a stupid man. What do you have to say? Rest in peace. Thank you for all of you done. Rest in peace, Edward.

Thank you for all you've done for young women and old women and all that stuff and stuff. And I remember her being super like a positive shining light. My mom really liked her a lot. She loved teaching me about her. I was homeschooled and I learned a lot about Amelia Earhart. And then as I got older, I realized she got eaten by coconut crabs and it became less about respect and more about like, oh, wow, that was inevitable. It became more about a fear of coconut crabs.

Yeah, it became more about crab meat. We got to hunt those crabs down. We got to do what I did to the cane toast to those crabs. At least you can eat the crabs. So there's some kind of benefit there. I don't think you can eat cane toast. That's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Thank you very much. Next week, Isaiah will be back to tell us all about his trip. He's a wonderful trip at the Creepcast Tour. Caleb, shout out your stuff. SourGG.

Go to Sour.gg, buy some sour candy. We release a new flavor every single Friday at 3 Central Standard Time. What's the flavor this week? The flavor this week, if this goes up this Friday, will be watermelon raspberry gummies. Mmm, yummy. Actually, my girlfriend would love that. Too bad we live too far away. Yeah, they're good. I'll get some eventually. I'll get you a code and you can have them for free. Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you very much. Yes, sir, bud. All right, thank you very much for listening to this episode of Red Thread, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.

Yes sir!