Amelia Earhart Mystery May Have New Clue In Never-Before-Seen Photo ｜ TODAY

This is one of Amelia Earhart's planes as she flew back in the 1930s. The plane, of course, she tried to go around the world in, has been missing since 1937. And now this photograph, unearthed by history investigators from the National Archives, appears to show Earhart and Fred Noonan, her navigator, on the dock in the Marshall Islands. The person who took that photograph, they believe, was later executed for being a spy. And now, with history, we are revealing that photograph for the first time right here. Amelia Earhart, on a globe-girdling flight with navigator Fred Noonan, took off for a hop over trackless ocean wastes and was never heard from again. For 80 years, the world has wondered what happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan. In July 1937, they were over the Pacific on a round-the-world flight when they disappeared. This photograph came out of a top secret... But now, investigators from history believe they found evidence the two were blown off course and survived. I have a photograph which I believe clearly indicates that Earhart was captured by the Japanese. Retired Treasury Department investigator Les Kinney has spent 15 years looking for Earhart clues. While searching through formerly top secret files in the National Archives, he discovered this photograph from about 1937 marked Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands, a string of small islands that at the time were under Japanese control. We have a Caucasian woman with her back to the camera sitting there looking over towards the ship. You think this is Amelia Earhart? That's right. Photographic analysts tell history the photo appears legitimate and undoctored. Former FBI Executive Assistant Director Sean Henry, an NBC News analyst, worked on the project. When you pull it 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. In 1937, the Japanese had banned nearly all Westerners from the islands. But in the photo, it appears there are two Caucasians on the dock. A man standing on the left and what appears to be a woman with short hair wearing pants, like Earhart, sitting on the edge. Henry took the photo to facial recognition expert Kent Gibson, who first overlaid the photo of the man with file photos of Fred Noonan. The hairline is the most distinctive characteristic. It's a very sharp receding hairline. The nose is very prominent. The teeth, hairline and nose all appear to match up. It's my feeling that this is very convincing evidence this is probably Noonan. Then, the person sitting with their back to the camera with hair that appears too long for a man and too short for a native woman. Gibson compared body measurements with previous photos of Earhart. Again, striking similarities. I usually go from not likely to likely to very likely to extremely likely. And I'd say this is very likely. And there's more evidence. In the distance, the Japanese ship Koshu, which is towing a barge with something measuring 38 feet long. The same length as Earhart's plane. For decades, locals have said they saw Earhart's plane crash and the Japanese ship Koshu took her and Noonan away. The story even documented in stamps issued in the 1980s. Now, photographic evidence that the story may be true. We believe that the Koshu took her to Saipan and that she died there under the custody of the Japanese. We don't know how she died. We don't know when she died. The history team may have even found pieces of Earhart's plane and the prison in Saipan. This may actually have been her cell. This morning, this newly uncovered photo is opening a whole new set of questions about what happened to Earhart and Noonan. And what, if anything, did the U.S. government know? We have no evidence anywhere that she crashed into the ocean, even though that's been the common narrative for so many years. I think we have a lot of evidence that she lived and survived in the Marshall Islands. Locals say the Japanese military said at the time that the woman in the plane was a spy and not to talk about it. And for decades, the Japanese military has denied any knowledge of what happened to her. We reached out again to the Japanese military, the foreign ministry, and the Japanese National Archives. All of them say they have no evidence, no documents of her being in their custody. However, no official alive then is alive today, and many of those documents were destroyed during the war. It is a fascinating, full two-hour documentary that had me riveted. It's on Sunday night, History Channel, 9 o'clock Eastern Time. Guys, back to you. Tom, a couple of things. First of all, everyone in the studio is standing, looking in a monitor, watching this. So you have our attention, too. If this photo was in the National Archives, doesn't it mean that someone in the government knew that Amelia Earhart survived? It was in a file compiled by the Office of Naval Intelligence, gathering information about Japanese movement in the area. Did the people know that that was, in fact, Earhart and Noonan in the file? Or did they think it was simply a picture of the Marshall Islands and then throw it into a file? We don't know, but there's something else that's fascinating here. Another file, Office of Naval Investigations. A thick file on Amelia Earhart and the Marshall Islands, 170 pages, is missing. Was it purged? If so, when and by whom? 1930s or 40s? We simply don't know. Is this when I make the Law and Order sound effect? Okay, let's say, Tom, that the Americans did know that she had been captured. Why wouldn't they just announce that after the war? Yeah, because at the time, keep in mind, here's the thinking anyway. We have no way to know, right? But the thinking is that at the time, the United States was trying to build up a new ally, Japan, having just defeated Japan. And if it became well known that, in fact, Japan had put to death America's sweetheart, that would not have gone over very well with the American public. But something else. It was widely talked about for many decades that she may have died in Japanese custody in Saipan. And, in fact, history has a new letter. The commandant of a Marine Corps in 1971 wrote a letter saying, we all know she was killed in Saipan. Wow. That's fascinating. You have our attention for sure. Tom, thank you. Great report. You bet. Thank you.