Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Man, Welcome back to Coast to Coast, George Nori with you.
Speaker 2: Rich Martini back with us. Award winning filmmaker, best selling author.
Speaker 2: After his close friend died in his arms and then
Speaker 2: came to visit him, leader and members of his family,
Speaker 2: he's been writing about how it's possible to continue a
Speaker 2: conversation with someone on the other side. Rich Martini back
Speaker 2: on Coast to Coast. Mister Martini, I love running into
Speaker 2: you at live events. How are you, sir?
Speaker 3: I am great, sir, and I'm just glad that we're
Speaker 3: running into each other live events as opposed to the opposite.
Speaker 2: Well, even if we did on the opposite you'd still
Speaker 2: be able to communicate with us.
Speaker 3: That's right, and we'd still have a fun conversation because George,
Speaker 3: every time I talk.
Speaker 4: To you, you put a smile on my face. Likewise, great
Speaker 4: to hear your voice, and wow, I really.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you inviting me on. I heard these guys were
Speaker 3: mounting a new trip to go out and look for Amelia,
Speaker 3: and I wish them all the best. But all I
Speaker 3: can say is when they don't find her give me
Speaker 3: a call because I know where she is, I know
Speaker 3: where her plane is. And as you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 3: I've been talking to people on the flip side is
Speaker 3: I like to call it for the past fifteen years.
Speaker 3: It just it's one of these logic things. So let
Speaker 3: me let me just do a little logic puzzle. Winston
Speaker 3: Churchill says that he saw her, said that he saw
Speaker 3: Abraham Lincoln's ghost in the White House. Now, if we
Speaker 3: don't believe in ghosts, do we assume that he's lying,
Speaker 3: or do we.
Speaker 4: Assume that he made it up?
Speaker 3: Or is it possible that we just don't know because
Speaker 3: we didn't experience it. We weren't there. He says, that's
Speaker 3: what happened. And in the case of looking for Amelia,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit like one person telling us that
Speaker 3: Jimmy Hoffer was buried in Shase Stadium. And if one
Speaker 3: person tells you he's buried there, should we go dig
Speaker 3: up Shaye Stadium or maybe look at the place where
Speaker 3: two hundred people.
Speaker 4: Have said that they saw her there.
Speaker 3: I mean, if two hundred people saw Tom haff Fantineck,
Speaker 3: for example, or Poughkissie, wouldn't you go there wouldn't that
Speaker 3: be the most logical place to go and say, well,
Speaker 3: I don't know how he could possibly be there, but
Speaker 3: maybe he is, and that you would think exactly. And
Speaker 3: that's what Saipan represents. I've been to Saipan, as you know,
Speaker 3: and I've interviewed people there.
Speaker 4: I've filmed fifteen.
Speaker 3: New eyewitnesses, but I've gathered over two hundred eyewitnesses.
Speaker 4: The people who were there.
Speaker 3: I mean, I went to Saipan with Mike Harris and
Speaker 3: I know less Kenny went there many times, and other
Speaker 3: people have been and they've talked to people, They've talked
Speaker 3: to eyewitnesses. And when somebody tells you, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 3: saw her come ashore or as I've heard people who
Speaker 3: were interviewed. Vincent Lewis interviewed some of these people that
Speaker 3: Mike Harris did. She brought her plane down on Millia Tall.
Speaker 3: People saw that happen. Then they saw her arrested by
Speaker 3: the Japanese, reported her being slapped by the Japanese, reported
Speaker 3: her and Fred being put aboard a ship and taken
Speaker 3: to Jaluid by the Japanese. There are eyewitnesses who said
Speaker 3: they saw her aboard that ship. There are eyewitnesses who
Speaker 3: said they saw her come ashore in Saipan all around
Speaker 3: that same time. I've interviewed a few of them. Then
Speaker 3: there's eyewitnesses who saw her incarcerated and who knew that
Speaker 3: she was in a cell there. But there's also US
Speaker 3: Marines who when they got to the island in June
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty four, who found her briefcase, who found
Speaker 3: her passport, who saw the plane. I've interviewed at least
Speaker 3: a dozen people who claimed that they saw her plane,
Speaker 3: saw her briefcase, or the guy who decoded the message
Speaker 3: while he was in the marine headquarters that said, and
Speaker 3: he said it came from sync pack and he gave
Speaker 3: it to Clarence Wallace's COEO, and it said, we have
Speaker 3: found Amelia Earhart's airplane at Aslito Airfield. Now, why would
Speaker 3: anybody ignore that? Why wouldn't you look there?
Speaker 2: And it was in pretty good shape, wasn't it?
Speaker 4: Apparently because they flew it.
Speaker 3: A number of Marines claimed that they saw it flying
Speaker 3: around the south part of the island. A very unique plane.
Speaker 3: As one marine said to me, it had only been
Speaker 3: missing for seven years. We know exactly what it looked
Speaker 3: like and when we saw it. We recognized it instantly.
Speaker 3: Plus they heard people say, you can't go in there
Speaker 3: and look at Amelia Earhart's airplane.
Speaker 2: There was a Lockheed model Tenny electure.
Speaker 4: Right, That's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: And so Dick Spank, I don't know if you've had
Speaker 3: him on the show, but Dick Spank and Lets Kenny
Speaker 3: and Mike.
Speaker 4: Harris all went to Millie A.
Speaker 3: Toll.
Speaker 4: Dick has been many times and he's gathered.
Speaker 3: Pieces of a plane from Millia Toll, and those were
Speaker 3: studied by Jim Hayton, who is an NTSB investigator in Seattle, Washington,
Speaker 3: and I I've seen him on film saying be got
Speaker 3: a shadow of a doubt because he owns the same materials,
Speaker 3: and he showed me where they fit on the plane
Speaker 3: that they could only have come from Amelia Earhart's model plane.
Speaker 3: So my point is, why bring your pull hair out
Speaker 3: of your head trying to figure out where she is
Speaker 3: somewhere else when all of these things line up one
Speaker 3: after the other.
Speaker 4: I mean, I really bless these guys' hearts.
Speaker 3: I hope that they have a wonderful trip there. I
Speaker 3: just I really feel it's time to.
Speaker 4: Really and now here's the other part of it.
Speaker 3: Georgia and you know me. I've been talking via mediums
Speaker 3: meetings who work with law enforcement members of different law
Speaker 3: enforce from an agency, so I know how effective they are.
Speaker 3: They've told me consistently that Amilia wants to converse, that
Speaker 3: she wants to talk, and so over the past fifteen years,
Speaker 3: I've had continuing conversations with her, and I'm asking details
Speaker 3: about her life and her journey. For example, I had
Speaker 3: heard from Elgin Long, who now says he didn't tell
Speaker 3: me this, but all I can tell you is I
Speaker 3: record everything. He told me that he had talked to
Speaker 3: Dorothy Putnam and that was George Putnam's wife.
Speaker 4: And just before she divorced him, she had.
Speaker 3: Walked in on a room with Amelia and George and
Speaker 3: another woman, and mediums were telling me that this other
Speaker 3: woman was the love of her life, that she was
Speaker 3: a painter, that she was from Europe. Different mediums who
Speaker 3: had never met me, didn't know anything about me, would
Speaker 3: tell me the same answers. And a couple of months ago,
Speaker 3: I'm doing a session with Jennifer Shaffer. You know, we
Speaker 3: do a podcast hack in the Afterlife, and during this session,
Speaker 3: she said Emilia's telling me you should put this into
Speaker 3: chat GPT, you should go to AI and ask for
Speaker 3: what you're looking for. And so I thought, well, that's
Speaker 3: a weird thing to say, what a weird odd thing
Speaker 3: to say, But I said, why not? So I put
Speaker 3: all the parameters, and of course I've read all George
Speaker 3: Putnam's books, all Emilia's books, and all of these, all
Speaker 3: of these different mediums I've talked to. I just didn't
Speaker 3: have a name of this painter. I put it all
Speaker 3: in there, and George, I pushed enter, and up came
Speaker 3: one name. And then I followed that person's life and
Speaker 3: I looked at all of her photo all of her
Speaker 3: paintings that she had done, and lo, the old nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty two she had a painting which she called anonymous,
Speaker 3: but it was Amelia Earhart, clear as a bell. And
Speaker 3: of course then I took that information back to Jennifer
Speaker 3: Schaffer and said, hey, listen, I would look something up
Speaker 3: the other day, and Jennifer before I could, finished the
Speaker 3: sentence that Emilia is here and telling me you found her.
Speaker 4: So I found the woman that was.
Speaker 3: The love of her life, who was a painter from Europe.
Speaker 4: Something she had to hide. She had so many seecrets
Speaker 4: in her life that she had to hide.
Speaker 3: And what the last time we spoke, like last week,
Speaker 3: she said she was so disappointed that the Equal Rights
Speaker 3: Amendment has never been passed. It was something she helped
Speaker 3: create one hundred years ago. And even though, as I'm
Speaker 3: sure you heard that, people were talking about, well, it's
Speaker 3: been ratified by the entire nation, it just hasn't been
Speaker 3: gone into law.
Speaker 4: She was saying. She was sad.
Speaker 3: That was the word she used, sad that it had
Speaker 3: never come into law. So this is the point, and
Speaker 3: this is why it's important what we're doing. You and
Speaker 3: I talking about the ability to ask people on the
Speaker 3: other side questions about our journey, about our lives, what's
Speaker 3: their impression of how we're living, and is there anything
Speaker 3: we can do to fix it or to help the planet?
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Does?
Speaker 2: But rich, why was she arrested and harmed by the
Speaker 2: Japanese four years before there was a war?
Speaker 3: Well, first things first, nineteen thirty six, she applied for
Speaker 3: a permit.
Speaker 4: To fly over Japan.
Speaker 3: She was going to fly from Oakland and then in
Speaker 3: the westerly direction, but because of her plane got wrecked
Speaker 3: in Hawaii. The US Navy took over the repair of
Speaker 3: it and they changed her flight pattern, and it was
Speaker 3: around that time when they decided to put and there's
Speaker 3: a guy who was interviewed.
Speaker 4: I interviewed his son.
Speaker 3: They put us by camera on her plane and a
Speaker 3: fair Child aerial surveillance and it was supposed to take
Speaker 3: pictures of the deep water ports Japan was building in
Speaker 3: order to go to war, because they had said they
Speaker 3: wouldn't do that in the mandated islands.
Speaker 4: But the problem was she flew over these islands because.
Speaker 3: Of a storm at night, so there was no pictures
Speaker 3: she could have taken. However, when she landed the plane
Speaker 3: on Milia Toll, one of the locals there saw her
Speaker 3: bury a metal case. Now was that this fair Child camera,
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I do know that this person
Speaker 3: reported that, and they went and found a piece of
Speaker 3: like a medal there.
Speaker 4: Vincent Loomis's book, I think he talks about it.
Speaker 3: But the point is she was actively being a spy.
Speaker 3: She even said to a mechanic in the lockheed where
Speaker 3: they were fixing the plane, imagine me being a spy.
Speaker 3: That's been recorded, But that doesn't mean that she actually
Speaker 3: was a good spy. I do know this, and this
Speaker 3: has come from Amelia herself and from Fred Noonan, that
Speaker 3: they were both accused of being spies by the Japanese
Speaker 3: because in those days, if you spied on another country
Speaker 3: with an active war, and the Japanese were actively beheading
Speaker 3: people who they captured who they thought were spy a
Speaker 3: British couple Shanghai, and they were paranoid at the time, exactly,
Speaker 3: and so and also there were I have also in
Speaker 3: this new book. It's a number of sailors who were
Speaker 3: sailing in the same region, the same area, and their
Speaker 3: ships were taken away from them and they were incarcerated.
Speaker 3: And one of them claims that he saw Amelia there
Speaker 3: when he was incarcerated. But the point is she was
Speaker 3: in very dangerous territory.
Speaker 4: She didn't mean to.
Speaker 3: Now these guys that are going to look for her,
Speaker 3: that's where she wanted to go. She wanted to go
Speaker 3: to Gardner Island now called Nicka Morero. But was there's
Speaker 3: evidence and I showed the book that she constantly, at
Speaker 3: least three or four times, she was about two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty miles northwest of where she thought she was.
Speaker 3: Something about her leaning on the controls.
Speaker 4: I can only tell you.
Speaker 3: Paul Manz reported it, so did Fred Noonan on their
Speaker 3: trip when in her book Last Flight, he talked about,
Speaker 3: you know, we're two hundred and fifty miles northwest to
Speaker 3: where I thought we were. Anyway, I think that's what happened,
Speaker 3: because Milia Tole, where she did bring the plane down,
Speaker 3: is roughly two hundred and fifty miles northwest of where
Speaker 3: she thought she was, so she came down in hostile territory.
Speaker 3: The Japanese then came, according to islanders who saw her,
Speaker 3: came and arrested her and slapped her and put her
Speaker 3: aboard this ship and took her to Jaluit, where she
Speaker 3: was treated for her wounds by a young local native
Speaker 3: who I've seen interviews with him. I've talked to his
Speaker 3: business partner who said he was beyond reproach, and he
Speaker 3: said that fred Nona was more injured than Amelia, but
Speaker 3: that the and he overheard the Japanese sailors calling her
Speaker 3: a mira, and then he's reported that the many people
Speaker 3: reported that, and his story never changed, and ultimately she's
Speaker 3: then taken a sidepan and they wanted her as a
Speaker 3: bargaining chip to use in this upcoming war that was
Speaker 3: clearly happening because of the US oil embargo against Japan
Speaker 3: and all these other reasons. They were building these deep
Speaker 3: water ports to put their ships. Ultimately, they weren't able
Speaker 3: to use her as a chip, But they defended Saipan
Speaker 3: like it was Hawaii because Saipan had been part of
Speaker 3: Japan in nineteen fourteen and on it was they considered
Speaker 3: a homeland. They lost sixty thousand or they sent sixty
Speaker 3: thousand troops. I think thirty thousand died defending that island
Speaker 3: as if it was Japan because from then the Americans
Speaker 3: could fly to Tokyo and refuel. The war was effectively
Speaker 3: over when they took Saipan, so that's why they spent
Speaker 3: so much time trying to defend it. But here she
Speaker 3: had been and this is the really bizarre part, George.
Speaker 3: When I was on Saipan interviewing.
Speaker 4: Older people, I met.
Speaker 3: This gentleman and he told me the story, which was
Speaker 3: corroborated by another older gentleman, that in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 3: in the spring of forty four, she was on They
Speaker 3: saw her on the back of a Japanese truck with
Speaker 3: two other pilots, two other US pilots alive and alive.
Speaker 3: And well, she's alive. These other two pilots are alive.
Speaker 3: And both of these guys said the exact same story,
Speaker 3: the same street, how she was dressed, et cetera. Once
Speaker 3: I was talking to less Kinney about this, he told
Speaker 3: me the names of these two pilots. One was Lieutenant
Speaker 3: William Cornelis. The other and Jimmy McEwan. Both of them
Speaker 3: had been shot down because they were trying to map
Speaker 3: what Saipan was and they were executed. One was beheaded
Speaker 3: and one was shot.
Speaker 2: And again, this is before there was a declared war.
Speaker 4: Well, this was.
Speaker 3: Months before they were already at war. So this is
Speaker 3: nineteen forty four. This is like May of nineteen forty four.
Speaker 3: She's still alive.
Speaker 2: She's still alive, Okay, in May.
Speaker 4: Of forty four.
Speaker 3: That's what makes it so uncanny and unusual. And I
Speaker 3: try not to judge with people are saying to me.
Speaker 3: I tried to corroborate it, and so I was stunned
Speaker 3: when this guy was saying that, I thought she had
Speaker 3: died of dysentery early on, but no, she was still alive.
Speaker 2: Then seven years later that she's still alive then, still.
Speaker 3: Alive then and apparently taken around, and some Islanders said
Speaker 3: that she was very polite to them and tried to
Speaker 3: talk to their children and just continued being who she was,
Speaker 3: which was a really wonderful human being who really.
Speaker 4: Embodied the spirit of this adventure.
Speaker 3: And she, you know, lived the last years of her
Speaker 3: life in that way. But in the prison in Saipan,
Speaker 3: the prisoners had a family that brought them food. No
Speaker 3: one was there to bring food for her, and they
Speaker 3: had no cafeteria.
Speaker 4: They didn't feed people.
Speaker 3: So she really got sicker and sicker and sickre until
Speaker 3: she passed away. So all I can say is, you know,
Speaker 3: this story which has been I wouldn't call it haunting,
Speaker 3: which is in my sleeve for thirty over thirty years.
Speaker 3: I mean, I worked on the Amelia movie that Hillary
Speaker 3: Swank did, I worked on the Amelia movie that Diane
Speaker 3: Keaton did. I've been telling this story in variations, in
Speaker 3: various forms, really for forty years, and now I'm just
Speaker 3: finally putting a book together. It'll be out probably by
Speaker 3: contact in the desert, where I'm just going to put
Speaker 3: it all out there and let people, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: they can go find her. I in the book, you'll
Speaker 3: see the maps of where she said she's buried.
Speaker 2: What happened to the electro of the plane.
Speaker 3: So the plane was found in a hangar, and I
Speaker 3: think it was in June of nineteen forty four. Like
Speaker 3: I said Erskine Neighbors, the US Marine decoded the message
Speaker 3: we found it. Then they would try to decide what
Speaker 3: to do with it. And it took about two or
Speaker 3: three weeks before they toned it out of the hangar.
Speaker 3: But they flew it one day to sea if it
Speaker 3: would fly.
Speaker 4: Other guys saw that.
Speaker 3: But then they took it out of the hangar and
Speaker 3: the way Erskine neighbors describe that Julius Neighbors was they
Speaker 3: covered it with gasoline and then they had a P.
Speaker 4: Thirty eight a.
Speaker 3: Plane come over across the runway and shoot it up
Speaker 3: as if it had been shot by the Japanese and
Speaker 3: it was. It burned on the runway. The casing of
Speaker 3: the plane is illuminum, so it would have melted.
Speaker 4: However, as Jim.
Speaker 3: Hayden, the NTSP guy told me, the steel frame wouldn't
Speaker 3: melt and it was unique.
Speaker 4: To that model of planes, so the measurements.
Speaker 3: Would still be exactly as they were. And I asked
Speaker 3: people where what happened, and they showed me there's a
Speaker 3: pit at the end of the old runway where they
Speaker 3: pushed all the planes off and it's buried there, and
Speaker 3: that's where I would have to if somebody wants me to,
Speaker 3: I'm happy to go take a ground penetrating radar and
Speaker 3: find a piece of steel that measures what Jim Hayden
Speaker 3: said would be the measurements of her plane.
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