The U.S. National Archives made public thousands of pages of newly declassified government records related to Amelia Earhart’s 1937 disappearance over the Pacific, including her last known radio transmissions and detailed Navy search reports.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a news release that the initial release of 4,624 pages contains “newly declassified files from the National Security Agency, information on Earhart’s last known communications, weather and plane conditions at the time, and potential search locations, as well as subsequent inquiries and theories regarding her disappearance.”
Additional documents will be posted on the National Archives website on a rolling basis as more records are cleared for release, Gabbard added.
Earhart, 39, and navigator Fred Noonan, 44, vanished July 2, 1937, while attempting to reach tiny Howland Island on a round-the-world flight in their Lockheed Electra.
Their last confirmed transmission, logged by the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at 8:43 a.m. local time, was: “We are on the line 157 337 wl rept msg we wl rept…”
The newly released Navy search report, covering July 2-18, 1937, details an intensive effort by the battleship USS Colorado, aircraft carrier USS Lexington, and PBY-1 seaplanes that scoured nearly 250,000 square miles of ocean.
Four islands were flagged for possible landings: McKean Island showed a “recent disturbance of guano surface,” Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) had “signs of habitation or fire marks,” McKean Reef held “unusual debris,” and a “dark object, possibly wreckage,” was spotted in Sydney Island Lagoon.
The report also notes seven credible post-loss radio signals detected between July 2 and July 6, two of which were located near Gardner Island.
Aviation historians said most of the material has been available to researchers for years and is unlikely to resolve the decades-old mystery. The leading theory remains that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and ditched near Howland Island.
President Donald Trump ordered the full declassification of all federal Earhart records in September.
“Delivering on President [Donald] Trump’s promise, the release of the Amelia Earhart files will shine light on the disappearance of a beloved American aviator who has been at the center of public inquisition for decades,” Gabbard said in the news release.