New photographic evidence that Amelia Earhart survived her flight, only to die in Japanese custody?

There's no politics here, just an interesting story that could re-write a slice of American history. Investigators from the National Archives have revealed a formerly top-secret photograph that appears to show Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands - sometime after their historic, ill-fated, flight. For years, people have assumed that Earhart's plane crashed and its occupants were either killed in the incident, or survived to spend the rest of their lives on a deserted island. If the people in the photo are indeed Earhart and Noonan, it would re-write that scenario - giving it an even darker ending. It seems the flight may have been blown off course, and they were captured by the Japanese - eventually perishing as alleged spies in a Saipan internment camp. Here's the report, and the reveal of the photo, from the Today show.

A theory that Earhart was either shot down or captured by the Japanese gained traction back in the 1970's

This, by the way, is not the first time we've heard such rumblings. A theory that Earhart was either shot down or captured by the Japanese gained traction back in the 1970's. In some versions of the story, she and Noonan were knowingly off-course, having been enlisted as pre-war spies. In others, Earhart even managed to make it home, secretly re-patriating after Japan's surrender. The Japanese government has always denied any knowledge of, or involvement with, the disappearance but the story has persisted as a finge conspiracy tale. If this new photo really shows Earhart and Noonan, it may not be as "fringe" as previously believed. It would also beg the question: "If the U.S. Government had this supposed spy-photo, and kept it classified, did they know where Earhart was? Did they 'write her off' to spare themselves a morale and P.R. nightmare, or in an attempt to avoid an inevitable conflict with Japan?"