Amelia Earhart's fate has long been fertile hunting ground for conspiracy theorists, leading to some credibility-stretching explanations for her disappearance over the Pacific in July 1937.
One allegation that has repeatedly reared its head, however, is that Earhart and Fred Noonan were on a spying mission for the U.S. government. On the pretext of a round-the-world flight, the theory goes, they would fly over the Marshall Islands, where it was believed the Japanese were building military installations, in violation of a League of Nations mandate.
When they and their Lockheed Electra disappeared on July 2, some contend, it was either shot down or forced to land by fighters of the Imperial Japanese Air Force.