In August of 2017, I helped introduce the world to a man that had been quietly working on an idea that could blow the wheels off the Amelia Earhart/Fred Noonan story. He’d recently put out a book via the Paragon Agency called Tracking Amelia Earhart: Her Flightpath to the End. I happened to know the publisher of that book, Doug Westfall, who I’d met just a few months earlier and it was at that meeting that I first learned of tonight’s guest.

Once I got his number, I gave him a call, and then I read that book. There aren’t too many moments in this whole thing that I can remember my exact thoughts at an exact point in time. But this one? I know because I wrote it down. A singular question. And here it is. “Why doesn’t everybody know about this?!”

At the end of tonight, you’ll know two things. One - we have an aircraft off the coast of Buka, sitting a little over 100 feet down with a remarkable set of similarities to the holy grail of aviation. That’s a fact. And it’s inescapable now. And two - we’re gonna go get it. And in doing so, we’re going to mount the most incredible cross theory expedition this case has ever seen. They do say it takes a village.

You’ve heard from everyone around him, some of the key names involved in Buka III, and you’ve even heard from some detractors who’ve certainly shared their skepticism on what’s become a very curious wreck site in an area of the world that nobody had ever looked in, until he started looking over 15 years ago.

Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From Salisbury, Maryland, this is Bill Snavely.

Tracking Amelia Earhart: Her Flightpath to the End @ Specialbooks.com

Lost in Flight: Amelia Earhart Giving Cover as a Decoy for a Spy Plane @ Specialbooks.com

Tracking Amelia Earhart: Her Flightpath to the End @ Chasing Earhart

Buka III: Bill Snavely, Chris Williamson & the Dependable Engines Association @ Chasing Earhart