Amelia Earhart
Expedition Unknown premiered last night at 9pm on the Travel Channel, with former SyFy Destination Truth host Josh Gates. Fans of Destination Truth would recognize his old crew member and cameraman Evan Goldberg as his new cameraman on Expedition Unknown. In Destination Truth, he seemed to be a target for paranormal activity. In this episode, as stated above, Gates was investigating the famous aviator Amelia Earhart with the humor his fans have come to love.
“Aviator Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. In 1923, Earhart, fondly known as “Lady Lindy,” became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot’s license. She had several notable flights, becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928, as well as the first person to fly over both the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1937, she mysteriously disappeared while trying to circumnavigate the globe from the equator. Since then, several theories have formed regarding Earhart’s last days, many of which have been connected to various artifacts that have been found on Pacific islands—including clothing, tools and, more recently, freckle cream. Earhart was legally declared dead in 1939″ (from http://www.biography.com/people/amelia-earhart-9283280).
It was these theories that Josh Gates went to investigate. He spent a lot of time with the locals in Papua New Guinea, and did an interview during a sizable earthquake. Throughout the show, in true Josh Gates style, he drank strange drinks, was at the wrong end of a spear, traveled to a village in a float (that was just barely afloat). He also nearly passed out while trying some strange fruit-like drug. In the end, he wound up spending time with the local police. Josh chased down every lead he could find, in several places. He found a few planes that definitely did not belong to Amelia Earhart, but did belong to someone. One was definitely a WWII Japanese fighter plane. There were remains in the plane, underwater. He also spoke to a man that was convinced he had a piece of Earhart’s plane recovered from a remote Island. After chasing down all of these leads, Josh found a man who had found a box of human bones under his house in 1968 at the age of thirteen. The man turned the bones over to the Fiji museum, where they were lost. However, the man arranged for Josh to dig under his old home where the bones were found; it turns out the police never bothered to do that after human remains were found in the 60’s. I wouldn’t want to die in Fiji. After crawling under the little house, with lots of spiders, Josh dug in the sand and found a bunch of bones. He decided to stop and inform the authorities. When they went under the house in hazmat suits, to which Josh said, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The police did confirm that at least one of the bones Josh dug up was indeed human. There his investigation came to an end, it was in the hands of the Fiji police. Let’s hope they are more thorough than their predecessors.
It was a good show, similar to Destination Truth, but with more reliable rental vehicles and less crew members. I’m sure the episodes to come will be worth watching.
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