President Donald Trump has ordered the release of classified files—although not the ones many Americans are hoping for.
Trump has said he wants documents relating to the disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart declassified, despite some experts saying that no such documents exist.
In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. Five years later, on July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first woman to circumnavigate the world by plane.
The 39-year-old’s mysterious disappearance has fueled speculation and conspiracy theories for nearly a century—with Trump apparently taking personal interest in getting to the bottom of the matter.
“I have been asked by many people about the life and times of Amelia Earhart,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday evening. “Such an interesting story, and would I consider declassifying and releasing everything about her, in particular, her last, fatal flight!”
“I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her,“ he continued, in the same message.
The official U.S. Government position holds that Earhart’s plane ran out of fuel over the Pacific Ocean and that she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were lost at sea near their destination of Howland Island.
However, there have long been alternative theories that suggest the pair may have crashed elsewhere, possibly near the then-Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands, and were taken alive to Saipan, an island in the Northern Mariana Islands archipelago.
Speculation theorizes that Earhart and Noonan were executed by Japanese forces on Saipan under suspicion of espionage—and that their untimely end was covered up.
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s 1937 World Flight Attempt
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
One such Earhart truther is Kimberlyn King-Hinds, congressional delegate of the now-American-controlled Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, who has previously petitioned Trump for more information on Earhart’s disappearance.
“I believe the story of Amelia Earhart, and the Pacific’s possible role in it, deserves the same level of openness and commitment to truth that you have championed in other areas,” King-Hinds, a Republican, wrote to Trump in July.
King-Hinds, citing frequently discredited eyewitness testimony, noted that elderly Northern Mariana constituents still claim to have seen Earhart and Noonan in Saipan. These memories, “passed down through generations,” continue to play an enduring role in the history and cultural identity of the region, King-Hinds wrote.
The search for Earhart was vast and unprecedented; nine ships, 4,000 crew, and 66 airplanes were dispatched to search for the aviation legend. It lasted 16 days, covered an area the size of Texas, and cost over $88 million in today’s money. Given its thoroughness, the U.S. Naval Institute is “unequivocal” in its account of what happened to her and Noonan.
“What happened in the central Pacific in July 1937 is documented in official records that are voluminous, diverse, and, but for a couple of notable exceptions, mutually corroborative,” wrote Ric Gillespie, leader of 12 expeditions to the area and author of two books on the topic.
“Fifty-six years later, no significant sources remain classified,” he wrote in 1993, shortly after Democrat Sen. Daniel Inouye introduced a bill calling for the release of the Earhart files.
The bizarre announcement from Trump comes as Congress is set to vote on bipartisan legislation that would force the release of the mystery most 2025 voters and lawmakers are interested in: the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Legislation introduced by Reps. Ro. Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) in July could be voted on as soon as Monday.
The post Trump, 79, Vows to Get to Bottom of 90-Year-Old Mystery appeared first on The Daily Beast.
