Did She Really Disappear?

Celebritydom existed long before television. The brightness of Edison’s light still shines in America. Many others have carved out monument sized memories in the national consciousness. But in aviation, in the early decades of the twentieth century, there are really only a handful of superstars. with the Wright brothers, Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh, and perhaps Howard Hughes heading the list. No list is complete, however, without including the remarkable Amelia Earhart.

Perhaps her star shown with special brilliance because women were finally getting some recognition on the national stage. After her historic 1932 flight, as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, she became a media sensation.

In 1935 Earhart set her sights on one truly great adventure, a trip around the world in a twin engine Lockheed Electra. In 1937, along with navigator Frederick Noonan, Earhart set off to reinforce her superstar status. Tragically, her plane disappeared without a trace and she was never seen or heard from again. Or so the story goes.

This winter, Hillary Swank is slipping into the bigger than life role of Amelia Earhart to bring this woman’s achievements and heartbreaking end to the silver screen. Or at least one interpretation.

Another project has been underway, serving as the contrary yang to Swank’s ying. I am referring to researcher Tod Swindell’s efforts to assemble a documentary that seeks to tell the real Amelia Earhart story.

Swindell’s version of the story goes like this. Amelia Earhart was so uncomfortable with the media adulation she’d received for her cross-Atlantic flight and other successes, she simply had to come up with a creative solution that would enable her to re-establish a private life outside the public eye. The disappearance which took place in 1937 had been orchestrated over a two year period that would enable her to get all in place for a new, alternate identity.

It sounds pretty far out, until you allow Swindell to lay out his case. True, this theory has surfaced before and been rejected for various reasons. But Swindell claims that incontrovertible evidence has now emerged.

The success of Earhart’s escape down the gopher hole required complicity from other people in high places.

History produces cover ups like an untended garden produces weeds. And it is not uncommon for Hollywood to get the story wrong in an effort to tell a good story.

I’ve been in contact with Tod Swindell since first discovering and writing about the Amelia Earhart alternative story. (Burden of the Public Eye) Here is a short interview with Swindell as he strives complete the project which has been a burning passion of his over many years.

Ennyman: How long have you been involved with The Irene-Amelia story?
Tod Swindell: I have been involved with Earhart investigative research since 1991. She was my maternal Grandmother's hero. 'Gram' (Doris) told me Earhart stories as I grew up. (Doris was three years younger than Amelia, raised my mother and uncle alone.) So I grew up with an instilled interest.The website, www.irene-amelia.com is entirely mine. My two partners died in recent years. They were Joe Gervais and Rollin Reineck, WWII vets who I befriended in the mid 1990s, and came to love and admire greatly for their Earhart research achievements. The interesting thing, I find, is how even though it is obvious in a hidden historical sense, how Gervais was correct about his ID pin on the former Earhart in 1965, since WWII world society has been left to accept Earhart's loss as an everlasting mystery only. That is to say, historical dictum has done well to convince all the Gervais claim was a hoax, or an outright fraud, where in truth it makes great forensic historical sense, and if one does look into it with true objectivity, he or she realizes such a thing.

E: You’re currently producing a documentary on the Irene-Amelia story. How’s that coming along?
TS: I'm currently seeking funding to complete my documentary which is about 70% filmed. I have two French narrators, a man and a woman. The final documentary version will feature French voice over narration with English subtitles.

E: What is your marketing plan?
TS: To finish producing the film on Hi-Def with silent partnership, have a color print made, seek distribution while entering it in festivals, hopefully land a book contract and feature deal through said efforts. The deadline for Sundance entries is late October. But there are many, many festivals.

E: And how long is the documentary?
TS: 70 minutes.

E: How does it compare to Expelled or Michael Moore's stuff?
TS: I think it's a different animal, but it does shed some distrustful light on our national media and on our national historical dictum influences. As mentioned, it is to be narrated in French with English subtitles. I wanted it to sound like a foreign take an American historical issue.

E: Is it a made for TV documentary?
TS: Yes, but festival and four walls worthy, too.

E: Do you envision trying to get an Oscar on this project?
TS: Absolutely.

E: Ultimately, what’s you’re motivation here? What is it that drives you to go to these lengths to put your convictions out there like this?
TS: To me the truth is the truth and it cannot be changed, and I have a duty to share what I have learned and what I know. This was the point of building the website, and remains the point of still trying to complete the documentary. For the website begins to let the truth be told in a public sense, and the documentary should lead to the feature and book efforts. And yes, there is a script and a nice booklet presentation for the documentary.

If you get a chance, visit Swindell's Irene-Amelia website, dedicated to unveiling the curtain that has shrouded the Amelia Earhart story. Maybe we’ll never know the truth, or maybe we’re discovering it and find it simply too hard to believe. Earhart's disapperance certainly one of the great unsolved mysteries of the past eighty years. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him?

To learn more about this amazing woman, check out these two short YouTube videos.