A long-lost letter detailing Amelia Earhart’s final voyage has been found in California. The letter, which was found by a man in San Diego, contained the last known correspondence from Earhart’s navigator Frederick Noonan prior to their disappearance.
On July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan, who were in a Lockheed aircraft attempting to fly around the planet, hit major trouble when they lost their bearings and were running low on fuel near Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. Neither Earhart nor Noonan have ever been found and the case remains one of history’s biggest mysteries.
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E
But now, almost 84 years after their disappearance, new evidence has been reported in the form of old letters. Hunter Person explained that he first heard about the letters when he was a teenager when his mother found them in his grandfather’s old desk about 40 years ago. His grandfather and Fred Noonan were close friends and they exchanged several letters over the years.
A total of four letters were found in the old desk that were written during several voyages that Noonan had taken with Earhart between 1935 and 1937. When Person rediscovered the old letters, he shared them with FOX5 and then with the San Diego Air and Space Museum.
While all of the letters were very interesting, one in particular holds significant information – a 17-page letter written during their final and tragic around-the-world flight. Person explained that the letter had a postmark from Bandung, Java that was dated June 23, 1937 and mailed from the Indonesia’s Grand Hotel. Tragically, just nine days later, Earhart and Noonan would both disappear somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
In an interview with FOX5, Jim Kidrick from the San Diego Air & Space Museum stated that the letter contains specific dates, locations, weather challenges, and other important details regarding their last flight. “(There’s) nothing like this,” he said, adding, “This is like someone’s journal. This is like a diary, you know, it’s a reveal that we just never expected. I never expected to ever read something like this — ever.”
Amelia Earhart
As for the fate of the letters, Person said that he wants them to be in the possession of the right people such as a collector or the museum.
Kidrick went on to say, “This is the last great unfound mystery.” “They found the Bizmark, the German battleship, they found the Titanic, and other things in the world, but this is a mystery everyone would like to solve.”
Let’s hope that the letters can provide some sort of answers to the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. A video about the discovery of the letters can be viewed here.
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