AMELIA 'SURVIVED'
‘Seen’ in photo after crash
A photo unearthed from the National Archives that shows blurry figures on a dock may shed new light into the 80-year mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart.
The photograph, discovered by retired US Treasury Agent Les Kinney, apparently shows the famed aviator and navigator Fred Noonan among a group of people on a dock on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands — about 1,000 miles away from where they supposedly crashed into the sea and died.
In the grainy photo, a figure that looks like Earhart has her back to the camera and is sitting near Noonan as they prepare to board a boat.
The photo “clearly indicates Earhart was captured by the Japanese,” asserts Kinney, who has investigated the mystery since retiring 15 years ago and appears on the History special “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” airing this Sunday.
Kinney also claims a shadowy form in the background, on the far right, appears to be Earhart’s plane’s being towed by a ship.
He said he found the photo in the naval archives and believes it was taken in 1943, the year the US began bombing the atoll where Earhart and Noonan are supposedly seen in the photo.
Not everyone is convinced the photo shows the flier in the custody of a World War II enemy army.
Ric Gillespie, owner of TIGHAR — an aviation organization that theorizes Earhart and Noonan died as castaways — told TMZ the image is too grainy to confirm anything. He also pointed out that there are no soldiers in the photo and that everyone looks friendly.
Earhart was last heard from on July 2, 1937, as she attempted to become the first woman pilot to circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra plane with Noonan.
They were 22,000 miles into the 29,000-mile trip when they lost radio contact with the US Coast Guard near Gardner Island in the Pacific Ocean.
Earhart, 41, and Noonan, 43, were never heard from again. Neither their bodies nor the plane was ever located.
The official US government version is that they crashed within 40 miles of nearby Howland Island. lmassarella@nypost.com