Just The Gist of... Amelia Earhart
5/13/20261 hr 6 min
She was the most famous female pilot in history, a feminist icon, and arguably the world's first influencer, all carefully built by her book publisher husband George Putnam. But when Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific in 1937, the conspiracy theories went wild: Japanese spies, government cover-ups, secret island lives. Eighty-nine years on, the most likely explanation for what happened to her might also be the most disturbing of all. This is Just The Gist of Amelia Earhart: the brilliant PR campaign, the doomed 1937 round-the-world flight, and the theory that has haunted Howland Island ever since.
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Amelia Earhart Official Website (Amelia Earhart Official Site, 2025)
Inside the Many Conspiracy Theories Surrounding Amelia Earhart's Disappearance (TIME, 2019)
Bulletin 46: The Crab Experiment (TIGHAR, 2007)
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR, 2025)
Coconut crabs: bird-eating giants on tropical islands (Natural History Museum, 2021)
Review: The Aviator and the Showman by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (The New York Times, 2025)
The Aviator and the Showman by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (Goodreads, 2025)
The Truth About Amelia Earhart (The Atlantic, 2025)
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Clips
Showing 10 of 12Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRosie Waterland· Host0:00
Beep boop, beep boop, beep boop. A Just The Network production. Beep boop boop. [laughs] [laughs] That sounds good. There is a woman who is possibly one of the most famous cases of an unsolved disappearance of all time.
Sammy P· Guest0:22
Oh my God.
Rosie Waterland· Host0:22
Even though she was eventually declared dead, mainly so her husband was allowed to remarry, because he couldn't really get married if he was still married to someone who was technically alive.
Sammy P· Guest0:34
You're not allowed to do that. Yeah, sure.
Rosie Waterland· Host0:35
Exactly, that's against the rules.
Sammy P· Guest0:36
Big no-no. Yeah.
Rosie Waterland· Host0:37
Big no-no. Um, she is still really officially considered missing after, like- Mm-hmm ... 80 years. Um, but- Oh my God ... people in the know, experts, they think that she definitely did die, and in a pretty horror movie style, Creatures From The Lagoon kind of way. Today I'm giving you just the gist of Amelia Earhart.
Sammy P· Guest1:03
Oh my God.
Rosie Waterland· Host1:06
Ooh.
Sammy P· Guest1:06
Rosie, I know a little bit about this, and I'm so excited- Ee ... for you to tell me this story.
Rosie Waterland· Host1:11
Okay.
Sammy P· Guest1:11
I'm not so excited about what happened, I'm excited for the story.
Rosie Waterland· Host1:14
Oh, yeah.
Sammy P· Guest1:14
I must clarify that.
Rosie Waterland· Host1:15
Eek, poor Amelia. Uh, okay.
Sammy P· Guest1:17
Poor Amelia.
Rosie Waterland· Host1:18
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Just The Gist, the show where I, Rosie Waterland, give you just the gist