Miles's blog

Amelia Earhart has been part of the national conversation since she sprung on the scene in the 1930s.  Pretty much everyone knows the story of how she and her navigator disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while trying to fly around the world.  Because a massive search turned up nothing it has always been assumed that their plane went down in the ocean.  New evidence, however, supports proof that the actually landed the plane on a desert island, or just offshore, and survived for days.  A group is going to that island in July to look for more evidence, including conducting an underwater search for plane wreckage.

This is amazing.  That Earhart went down into the vast expanse of the Pacific was something we thought we knew.  For whatever reason, the search in 1937 found nothing so they wrote off her distress calls as some sort of hoax.  Through the years searches were made, evidence recovered (including some bones from a human skeleton), and photos taken.  All of these pointed to Earhart’s and her navigator Fred Noonan’s survival, but no one did a good job of putting the pieces together.  Solving this mystery now is both tragic and compelling.   The idea that Earhart and Noonan starved to death or died of thirst or met some other untoward fate (although short of drowning it is hard to imagine what that could be), is so sad.  I am sure they had confidence that a massive search was being undertaken which would find them.  Why it didn’t is perplexing.

At any rate, this kind of discovery is fascinating.  This sort of thing seems to happen all the time.  Apparently there is some, albeit scant, evidence that one of the escapes from Alcatraz may have been successful.  A new review of the facts revealed that some footprints were found in the sand walking away from where the raincoat raft was found on a nearby island, and, although at the time denied by officials, a car was stolen nearby.  Tantalizing clues.  Personally, I am not buying.  I don’t believe that these three career criminals escaped from Alcatraz and then managed to stay away from being arrested ever again.   But in that era identification was harder to do, and melting away was easier.  Heck even in our era a murderer like Whitely Bulger can be on the run for more than a decade. 

I am hoping history sleuths are working on some more mysteries.  Maybe they will turn up Jimma Hoffa’s body, or find out what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke.  Perhaps they can figure out who put those statues on Easter Island or determine the fate of the people on the Mary Celeste.  I would like to see them examine the following:

·        Did Babe Ruth really call his shot or not?  Most people think he didn’t point to the bleachers but that he was jawing with the Cubs bench.  There is no conclusive proof, but the general consensus is that he didn’t.

·        Whatever happened to that kid from “The Sixth Sense?”  He got nominated for an Academy Award.  Then he made some movie about lions and old men, and now I have no idea where he is.

·        What really did start the Great Chicago fire? I mean the old lady’s cow has taken the rap all these years, but she is probably innocent.

·        Who was D.B. Cooper and whatever happened after he jumped out of that plane?

·        What really are the secret ingredients of Kentucky Fried Chicken?\