The photo is haunting. Among a number of figures gathered on a dock, the fuzzy image seems to be that of a woman, her back to the camera, gazing at what may be her crippled aircraft loaded on a barge, and perhaps wondering what her future might hold.
Is this Amelia Earhart, the world-famous aviator, witnessed after her mysterious disappearance while attempting the first round-the-world flight 80 years ago this month?
That is the theory put forth in Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence, a two-hour documentary airing Sunday on the History channel. It uncovers records, including this newly revealed photograph that shows what may be a healthy Earhart along with her navigator Fred Noonan, after they were last heard from.
The film also argues that after the pair crash-landed in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, they were picked up by the Japanese military and that Earhart, perhaps presumed to be a U.S. spy, was held prisoner.
And there’s more: the United States government knew of her whereabouts and did nothing to rescue her, according to the film.
The disappearance of Earhart and Noonan on July 2, 1937, in the Western Pacific Ocean has gained legendary status among the age’s unsolved mysteries.