Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Amelia Earhart disappearance is still a subject of fascination ever since her plane vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
Earhart was attempting to become the first female pilot to fly around the world in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10-E Electra and many people believed that she and her navigator Fred Noonan were captured by the Japanese.
However, a newly unearthed blurry photograph shows Earhart and Noonan and their plane on an atoll in Marshall Islands.
According to a NBC report, experts are not convinced about the photo, which was found in a long-forgotten file in the National Archives and featured in a new History channel special, but Independent analysts told History the photo appears legitimate and undoctored.
“When you pull out, and when you see the analysis that’s been done, I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that’s Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan,” NBC News quoted Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director for the FBI.
Earhart had disappeared on July 2, 1937, and two years later the United States concluded she had crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and declared her dead.
Facial recognition experts also told the news channel that they believe that the hairline of a man standing at far left in the photo matches that of Noonan, and the torso measurements and short hair of a person sitting on the dock matches that of Earhart.
The executive producer of the History documentary Gary Tarpinian told the NBC’s Today show that they believe the Japanese merchant ship Koshu in the picture took Earhart to Saipan, where she died in Japanese custody.
Earhart, who was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, is the recipient of several honors including the US Distinguished Flying Cross. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.