The newly released secrets of the Amelia Earhart case

Trump has promised to reveal all the secrets. What will they tell us?

On September 26, 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was going to release all remaining classified documents about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the female pilot who set so many records and broke so many barriers. I, personally, actually have two connections to Amelia Earhart:

1. I live in Bend, Oregon. The local newspaper, the Bend Bulletin, was founded by Earhart’s husband, George Putnam, and debate continues to this day whether she ever spent any time living in Bend. OK, that’s kind of a lame connection; my next one is much better.

2. My maternal grandmother Tay Reynolds — who rightfully earned the formal name Granny — had been a milliner (a maker of hats for women) in New York City in the 1930s. Her hats bore a beautiful label that said Hats by Tay. Shortly before she left on her infamous round-the-world flight, Amelia Earhart came into Granny’s shop and commissioned a hat. It was probably the last hat she ever bought. Did she take it on her circumnavigating flight? We’ll probably never know.

Trump’s announcement was prompted by a request from an official in the Northern Mariana Islands. Belief there has always been strong that Earhart had been taken prisoner by the Japanese and had been held for a time in the Marianas. This claim has been most forcefully advocated by conspiracy theorist Mike Campbell in his 2012 book, Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last. The claim is based mainly on accounts from elderly Northern Mariana residents who once recalled seeing a woman with short hair on Saipan; and the government has covered it up.

If it’s a conspiracy theory, you can bet the current US administration is going to pursue and promote it aggressively.

But what are these supposedly classified documents? Why would anything about her be classified — Earhart was, at the time of her disappearance, the most famous woman in the world — everything she did was widely published. What secrets could there be? Well, there are some conjectures about what documents might remain classified. Here is the synthesis of what I dug up:

• The search for Earhart was huge. Many ships from many nations came out to help. The US spent $4 million in 18 days, and some say they used it as an excuse to gather intelligence about Japanese installations in the region. This was 1937: Tensions were building between the US and Japan, but there were no hostilities yet. Some of the ships that joined the search were Japanese. Perhaps some intelligence was gathered about Japanese emplacements, and that might conceivably still be classified.

I was unable to find any other reasons there might be classified documents remaining that pertained to Amelia Earhart. And even these were much more about Japan than about her.

Anyway, whatever secret information about her was disclosed long ago. She disappeared almost 90 years ago — is there really anything Earth-shattering that could remain undisclosed?

• In 1998, the National Archives released all of its Earhart-related materials. Here you go. The most interesting single document was a 96-page “Report of the Search for Amelia Earhart, July 2-18, 1937” compiled by the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, Pearl Harbor. It details the area where her plane went down while searching for her refueling stop, Howland Island, in the presence of (and in radio contact with) US Navy and Coast Guard vessels. I detailed this in Skeptoid episodes 295 and 580. Really, at that point, no mysteries remained.

• In 2011, the FBI’s website The Vault made all of their files on Earhart public also. You can go crazy and read it all if you want, but it’s mostly letters from the general public asking for information.

• The State Department released 364 pages, mostly details about her final flight — lots of logistical stuff and blah blah blah. (“General Records of the Department of State (Record Group 59) [CP]”)

• Even the US Army released 81 pages about Earhart’s disappearance. (“Records of the Office of the Adjutant General, (Record Group 94) – Army Records [DC]”)

• In 1999, the CIA gave up everything it had. This included the document titled “AMELIA EARHART’S SECRET” (Document Number CIA-RDP75-00149R000200480009-2) — originally published in 1966; and “I’LL FIND AMELIA EARHART” (Document Number CIA-RDP75-00149R000200480016-4)” — originally published in 1964.

So, basically, yeah. Everything about Amelia Earhart was disclosed long ago. There just aren’t any secrets from 1937 anymore that are such hot topics they need to be kept under lock and key. They ran out of fuel and ditched, then sank. Deep. This has never been in dispute.

The Discovery Network has long and aggressively promoted the false claims of pseudoarchaelogist Ric Gillespie, who has made a career out of saying that Earhart landed at an atoll hundreds of miles from the Coast Guard boats, lived for a time as a castaway, and left relics by her campfire and bits of her plane out on the reef. Even Gillespie, who had previously never spoken a true word about Earhart in his life that might threaten his wallet, responded to Trump’s post by telling the Associated Press “There’s nothing still classified by the U.S. government on Amelia Earhart.” Shockingly, I agree with Ric Gillespie on something.

So what might still be classified? Like, there are super top secrets from the Pacific Ocean in 1937?

• Intelligence reports? Stuff about the Japanese?

• Communications intercepts? Did we pick up any good Japanese traffic?

• Diplomatic cables? Were there any interesting conversations with foreign governments during the search?

I really couldn’t find anything else worth mentioning. Many are saying it’s just another attempt to distract from the Epstein files, and it’s perfectly likely that could play some role. What we should expect from these new document releases — should they ever materialize — will likely be a gigantic zero, just like the other major document releases of 2025, not one of which contained anything previously unknown:

• The JFK files.

• The RFK files.

• The MLK files.

So if I can summarize this in a single phrase: I’m not expecting to find any meat on these bones.

I really wish they’d leave Earhart alone, instead of graffitiing her memory with a bunch of false nonsense and conspiracy theories. I’ll close with a quote from my Skeptoid episode on her:

Amelia Earhart was one of our great representatives of women achieving excellence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). She was a pioneer and a role model in every way. But the image we have of her today is profoundly clouded by these false histories and conspiracy theories cloaked upon her by these television networks. They do a great disservice not only to her memory and to her legacy, but to today’s young women whom she might otherwise be inspiring.

Amelia Earhart was 39 years old. She served as a nurse during World War I, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and held numerous speed, solo, and nonstop flight records.

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