President Trump announced on September 26, 2025, that he’s ordering the release of all classified government records about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.
The aviation pioneer vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Almost 90 years later, her fate remains one of America’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
“I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He called her disappearance an “interesting story” that has “captivated millions.”
The Final Flight That Never Ended
Earhart was attempting to become the first woman to fly around the world when she disappeared.
She and navigator Fred Noonan vanished while flying toward Howland Island in the Pacific on July 2, 1937. She had radioed that she was running low on fuel. The Navy launched a massive search but found nothing.
She was declared legally dead in 1939.
The Spy Theory That Won’t Die
The most controversial theory suggests Earhart was on a secret reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government.
Republican delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds wrote to Trump in July, referring to “credible, firsthand accounts” that Earhart was spotted on the Pacific island of Saipan. One theory proposes that Earhart landed in Saipan and was taken into custody by the Japanese.
During World War II, multiple witnesses came forward. Marines stationed on Saipan in 1944 told stories of local residents who claimed to have seen a white woman matching Earhart’s description before hearing gunshots near a freshly dug grave.
The theory gained more attention when the FBI and Navy realized the Japanese would have been interested in Earhart’s heavily modified Lockheed Electra, which featured innovations being adapted to long-range warplanes.
But is any of it true?
What Experts Are Saying
Not everyone believes there’s anything left to find.
“There’s nothing still classified by the U.S. government on Amelia Earhart,” said Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, who has studied Earhart for decades. He points to previous document releases by the FBI and National Archives.
Laurie Gwen Shapiro, a journalist who wrote a book on Earhart, notes it’s widely believed that Earhart crashed into the ocean near Howland Island after running out of fuel.
However, Mindi Love Pendergraft, executive director of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, said Trump’s action “is sure to pique the interest of those dedicated to uncovering the mystery of Earhart’s disappearance”.
A Pattern of Declassification
This isn’t Trump’s first foray into releasing historical secrets.
His administration has already released thousands of pages about President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., all assassinated in the 1960s. Those files revealed no major breakthroughs.
In 1993, two Hawaiian lawmakers introduced bills requiring the government to declassify “any such relevant records that have been classified as government secrets” about Earhart’s last flight, but the measures never made it out of committee.
Will We Finally Learn the Truth?
Whether Trump’s order will shed new light on Earhart’s fate remains to be seen.
Theories about her disappearance have ranged from the absurd, including abduction by aliens or living in New Jersey under an alias, to more plausible scenarios like being executed by the Japanese or dying as castaways on an island.
The most likely explanation remains the simplest: Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific. But after 88 years of speculation, conspiracy theories, and unanswered questions, many are hoping government files might finally solve aviation’s greatest mystery.
Or they might just add another chapter to a story that refuses to end.
