Amelia Earhart Expert Claims Newly Emerged Photo Is Fake

An upcoming documentary airing Sunday on the History Channel titled "Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence" planned to rewrite history by shedding light on Amelia Earheart's mysterious disappearance, but an expert on Eartheart claimed on Wednesday that the documentary is a fraud, according to TMZ.

Ric Gillespie, the owner of The International Group For Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), an organization that investigates Earheart's disappearance, claims the famed aviator isn't present with her navigator Fred Noonan in a blurry photo that the documentary believes to be real.

Read: Did Amelia Earhart Survive Crash? A New Photograph Suggests She Didn’t Die In Crash

While there are many theories that have emerged regarding Earheart's disappearance, Gillespie and TIGHAR don't stand behind this one.

Gillespie, who has known about the photograph that the History Channel reveals it evaluated for about a year in the upcoming documentary, told TMZ that "there were a lot of mercenaries in that area at the time ... so it could be any white woman in the pic — the features aren't recognizable."

The Earhart expert claims that "she would not have had enough fuel to get to the Marshall Islands, where the photo was allegedly taken," primarily because her final signal was discovered roughly 100 miles from that location.

It's worth noting that the photo also doesn't match smoothly with the documentary's captive theory. Gillespie clarified that "none of the alleged captors [in the photo] have guns or look threatening." Two Caucasians pictured appear to be engaging in casual activity, hanging freely on a pier at the Marshall Islands.

Nonetheless, Gillespie and fellow members of TIGHAR continue to stand behind their initial theory, which is that Earhart survived the 1937 airplane crash and died as a castaway on Nikumaroro, Kiribati, an island located in the western Pacific Ocean.

Read: What Happened To Amelia Earhart? Forensic Dogs To Search For Pilot’s Remains

The photograph at hand was discovered in the National Archives by Les Kinney, a former United States Treasury Agent. It was released ahead of the documentary, which is slated for a July 9 premiere, as a promotional tool to spark interest amongst potential viewers. The alleged photo shows a woman and a man, who is presumed to be Earheart and Noonan, surrounded by a group of island natives on a dock in the Marshall Islands.

"If you look at her, you look at the body, the build, the short hair, the fact that she's a Caucasian and when you look at this individual over here, this taller man is Caucasian. Fred Noonan, Earhart's navigator," Kinney said in the documentary.

According to People, Former FBI Assistant Director Shawn Henry claims in the documentary that "we got a straight answer from the government" on her disappearance, an event for which he believes "someone went to great lengths to make sure the world never knew the real story."

Whether The History Channel or TIGHAR's theories on Earheart's disappearance are accurate are to be determined. However, TIGHAR has had previous success in unearthing pertinent evidence regarding the 1937 incident, including bone fragments that were found several months after the organization's 2012 expedition. Reportedly, they could remnants of Earhart's body.

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