She disappeared.....

I'll dispense with my usual angriness and talk of something.... different. Usually I'm an emotional powder keg when it comes to current issues, and world politics and such, but now I'm jumping in the way back machine to the distant past.

When I was a kid a remember vividly reading a booking called 'Great Mysteries of the Air" which I checked out from the library. Several times did I do this, because the text inside had so much paranormal information for an 8 year old boy, as well as I recall a distinctly chilling chapter called "They Disappeared..." Chapter 3 I believe. In this chapter was the tale of one lady, who was not extraordinary in any way other than her ability after her disappearance to inspire.

Amelia Earhart was many things during her life time, the most notable of which was being the "Queen of the Air". She was a female pilot in a time when there were very few female pilots, and she was set to accomplish many things during the golden age of flight. So why would her story strike me so? What could possibly motivate this man here to walk away from his bitterness to write about the phenomenal lady? In truth I couldn't tell you. I've sporadically pondered the disappearance of this woman throughout my lifetime, wondering why we've never found her. Surely in the modern age we would be able to find a heap of aluminum at the bottom of the Pacific, or an aerospace wreck on some remote and distant island? It's not a priority I guess...

The erasure of a human being from the face of the earth is something so common place in our lives now. Wars, famine, and disease take from us that which propels our shambling carcasses forward into the future, and lays it to rest without so much as a by-your-leave that we barely notice. We see it on TV, we read about it in the paper (if we read at all), so much so that we are inundated by it and numbed at the same time. But her story seems different somehow given the context. If you could imagine, and my embittered state scoffs at the ability of most modern peoples to be able to do such, then imagine her end. Flying over open water, possibly not a spot of land in sight and running low on fuel. You reach for the radio and check the time. Roughly 7:42am. You key your radio switch with one hand as the other holds the vibrating stick in the other, thrumming in time with the Electra's engines. After a moment you speak hoping someone would hear you. "We must be on you, but cannot see you -- but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet."

Meanwhile your navigator and flight Engineer Frank Noonan is working on your position. Where the hell are you?? You check your gauges, and then key the radio again, asking the Itasca to transmit so that you might use the radio to get the proper direction. Suddenly beeping in the radio cuts through the static of the radio, and noise of the cockpit. Morse code. The Itasca is transmitting but the equipment can't pin where the signal is coming from. You call out on the radio again informing the Itasca that you've received them but can't locate where they're at. The minutes pass by and Frank has figured out where he thinks the plane should be. So you decide to try a different direction, and start flying in a more southerly direction. You check your watch again. 8:43am. Not sure how much longer you can stay in the air, you radio out again. "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." A pause as Frank says something to you, then you add to the message "We are running on line north and south."

Now the scene switches. Imagine if you will that your a radio operator either on the Itasca, or elsewhere in the Pacific. After the 8:43am transmission from Amelia all you seem to be able to do is listen and hope. You try to transmit to her but to no avail, as other operators are trying the same, and the airwaves are cluttered. Not only that, her transmissions are becoming fainter, and at some point she reiterates that they are flying along a line of position that intersects with Howland Island. More static, more fading signals. Her transmission is now unintelligible. You know she's out there, but you can't make her out, and then she's gone. Plucked from the universe it seems for all your efforts to bring her someplace safe.

Where did she go?.......