Buff has doubts about Earhart photo

NEW YORK — A Japanese military history buff has apparently undermined a new theory that Amelia Earhart survived a crash-landing in the Pacific Ocean during her attempted round-the-world flight in 1937.

The history blogger has posted the same photograph that formed the backbone of a History channel documentary that argued that Earhart was alive in July 1937.The book the photo was in was apparently published two years before the famed aviator disappeared.

The undated black-and-white photo is of a group of people standing on a dock on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands. One of the people seems to be a slim woman with her back to the camera.

The documentary argued it proved Earhart, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, landed in 1937 in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, where they were picked up by the Japanese military and held prisoner.

The History channel said Tuesday its investigators are “exploring the latest developments about Amelia Earhart and we will be transparent in our findings.”

Experts on the show claim the subjects in the photo are likely Earhart and Noonan.

A retired federal agent said he discovered the image in 2012 in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The blogger said he found the same image digitized in Japan’s National Diet Library.