Episodes

  • S3 Ep34: Through Many Miles of Tricks & Trials: A Conversation with Dorothy Cochrane

    S3 Ep34: Through Many Miles of Tricks & Trials: A Conversation with Dorothy Cochrane
    Jan 25 2026
    I think I wanna start tonight by telling you all a quick story. In 1932, Amelia Earhart completed the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman and became only the second person to make the flight period. She did it in NR7952 her beautiful Lockheed Vega.Now, I love all of Earhart’s famous planes and even though it may not be the most famous one, it’s my personal favorite and has been since I was a kid. During our visit to the Smithsonian a few years ago, I remember standing under it while my wife snapped a picture. “Now look at me and smile!” she said - as she snapped a picture that continues to hang in my office to this day. We stood under it together after the picture and just enjoyed being in the same space as something Amelia loved so much. It was real, we could touch it. “Can you believe we made it here?” she asked? I couldn’t. We were never supposed to make it past the first few episodes of the show and now we were standing in Air & Space in Washington D.C. and we’d already shot several guests for the documentary across the country before that point. I looked up, standing under that wing thinking that it was the most beautiful piece of winged machinery I’d ever laid eyes on. For nearly a century, Amelia Earhart’s name has lived in two worlds at once.One is made of headlines and legend…the kind of stuff that turns a woman into a symbol, then turns that symbol into a battleground. The other world is quieter. Heavier. More honest. It lives in archives. In carefully preserved artifacts. In labels written by steady hands. In collections protected not for what we want to believe—but for what we can actually prove. Because if there’s one thing this case has taught me… it’s that the mystery doesn’t survive on a lack of answers.It survives on noise. On certainty sold too quickly. On the comforting illusion that the truth must be simple… or cinematic… or just one big discovery away.But Amelia wasn’t simple. And the story she left behind isn’t either.Tonight, we’re sitting down with someone who has spent a lifetime living in the space between myth and material… between the public story and the private record. She’s one of the most trusted voices in American aviation history— a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum curator whose work has helped preserve and interpret the artifacts that define how the world remembers flight. And when it comes to Amelia Earhart specifically, she’s not approaching this from the outside looking in. She’s spent decades stewarding the very things people argue about—general aviation history, flight materiel, aerial cameras… and the story of women in aviation as a living, breathing timeline—not a highlight reel.In other words…when she speaks, the room gets quieter.Because she’s not here to sell us a theory. She’s here to bring us back to the only thing that has ever deserved the steering wheel in this case: the woman and the record.And that matters—because right now, the Amelia Earhart conversation is loud again.New expeditions - new claims - new “finally solved” declarations are running laps around the internet, right now. But before we sprint toward whatever comes next… we need to do something most people skip: We need to slow down. We need to ask what the evidence can actually carry. We need to separate story from story-telling. And we need somebody who knows the difference.She’s devoted more than forty years to collecting and preserving aviation artifacts—not just to keep them safe, but to make sure the stories behind them are told responsibly… in a way that educates and inspires, instead of misleads and inflames. That kind of work doesn’t make you famous in the way the internet understands fame. It makes you foundational. It makes you the person future historians cite.The person documentaries call when they want to get it right. The person you bring in when the legend gets so big, that the truth struggles to breathe.Oh and, something really cool. You’ve heard me talk about my original 25 - the list I made when I sat down to begin this project so long ago. Not only was she on my original 25 - but she was number 1. How bout that? So…….if you’ve ever wanted to hear what this case sounds like when the noise lowers and the facts step forward— This is your night. And we have one helluva instructor. Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From Washington, D.C by way of the Smithsonian Air & Space, this is Dorothy Cochrane.LINKS:Our Website Vanished on Twitter Vanished on Instagram Vanished on TikTok Vanished Facebook Discussion Group Chasing Earhart on Facebook Chasing Earhart on Twitter SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:Dorothy Cochrane @ Smithsonian Air & Space Amelia Earhart Project Recordings @ Smithsonian Air & Space Opinion: Amelia Earhart and the continuing search for her Lockheed Electra @ CNN Amelia Earhart’s Trailblazing Life in Aviation @ Smithsonian Magazine Amelia Earhart...
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    24 mins
  • S3 Ep33: What Lies Ahead: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Pettigrew

    S3 Ep33: What Lies Ahead: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Pettigrew
    Jan 19 2026

    For nearly a century, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart has lived in the space between history and legend — a story told and retold, debated and dissected, yet never fully resolved. But every so often, the mystery shifts. Not because of rumor. Not because of speculation. But because of evidence.

    Tonight’s conversation centers on the physical remnants left behind — fragments of a story buried in coral, sand, and time. Artifacts recovered from the remote island of Nikumaroro have forced us to ask an uncomfortable question:

    What if we really have been looking in the right place all along?

    Tonight we hear an update from a man that’s very much been at the center of the Earhart/Noonan search as of late — an archaeologist whose work has focused on the scientific analysis of this material evidence. His research doesn’t promise answers wrapped in certainty, but it does something far more important: it challenges assumptions, tests long-held beliefs, and brings the conversation back to what the evidence actually shows and why it matters.

    Just a few months ago, the highly publicized trip out to Nikumaroro was postponed. Now, it’s time to find out why. It’s time to slow the story down, examine what’s been discovered, how it’s been studied, and why these discoveries continue to reshape one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

    This isn’t about closing the case. It’s about following the evidence — wherever it leads.

    Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From Eugene Oregon, this is the return of Dr. Richard Pettigrew.

    LINKS:

    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:
    • The Taraia Object @ The Archeology Channel
    • Taraia Object Deciphered @ TIGHAR Boards
    • Expedition to locate Amelia Earhart's plane delayed by permit approval process, weather @ CBS News
    • 1 month out: Countdown to the search for Amelia Earhart’s plane begins @ Purdue.edu
    • Purdue Research Foundation and Archaeological Legacy Institute to embark on expedition to identify Amelia Earhart’s missing plane @ Purdue Research Foundation
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    24 mins
  • S3 Ep32: Revolution: A Conversation with Susan Ware

    S3 Ep32: Revolution: A Conversation with Susan Ware
    Jan 11 2026

    For more than nine decades, Amelia Earhart’s name has been spoken with reverence and wonder—a flight path etched deep into the world’s imagination, and a disappearance that keeps us chasing echoes of her last sunrise over the Pacific.

    When I first started out on this journey so long ago, I was filled with optimism. Early in the project, I reached out to a woman who wrote one of my favorite Earhart books ever written. I never thought she’d say yes. But I was surprised a lot in those early days. She’s an award-winning historian whose work has helped broaden our understanding of women’s history, power, and the stories we tell about those who defy gravity—literal and figurative.

    But what happens when we step off the edge of the known and begin to look at the woman behind the myth? Not just the aviator who vanished, but the human being whose choices, context, and legacy ripple through gender, memory, and cultural terrain that often resists simplification?

    In her writing, tonight’s guest doesn’t just recount events. She situates them in the emotional landscape of their time, inviting us to confront not only what we remember, but why we remember it at all.

    In December of 2017, she made her Chasing Earhart debut. Nine years later, she’s back to discuss the latest developments in the Amelia Earhart case, for which there are many, and to remind us all what this story has always been about. Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From Hoptiken, New Hampshire, this, is Susan Ware

    LINKS:

    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:
    • Susan Ware's Official Website
    • Susan Ware @ Wikipedia
    • Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism @ Amazon
    • Amelia Earhart: Pioneering Feminist @ The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's YouTube
    • Records Relating to Amelia Earhart @ The National Archives
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    38 mins
  • S3 Ep31: July 2, 1937 – 8:43 A.M. - A Conversation with Jeff Morris & Rod Blocksome

    S3 Ep31: July 2, 1937 – 8:43 A.M. - A Conversation with Jeff Morris & Rod Blocksome
    Oct 11 2025
    It’s been 86 days since we last released an episode for this show.

    I thought I could take some time off. You'd think I’d know by now.

    Back in May of this year, Amelia Rose Earhart made her Chasing Earhart debut as part of this reboot and we covered a lot of ground. What I didn’t know then, but am privy to know now, is that Amelia Rose, had a trick up her sleeve. At the time of our recording, she was being courted by several groups in the case, asking for her assistance in spring-boarding their searches, and the chase for her participation was very, very real. Since that episode, the search for Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan has, let’s just say, taken a turn and we’re now in the middle of a race to the answer for a mystery that is now as white hot as it’s ever been.

    Amelia Rose has made her decision since that time, and it’s indeed given a boost to a team that’s been conducting one of the longest investigations this case has ever seen.

    Toward the end of August, it was announced that Amelia would join deep ocean exploration company Nauticos in its forthcoming trip out to the Pacific to pick up the search and bring Amelia Mary Earhart home. For good.

    But…..theirs isn’t the only search going on at the moment. Perhaps Amelia’s strongest professional connection at the time of her disappearance, Purdue University, has now also thrown their hat into the ring by pledging their support to Dr. Rick Pettigrew, and the Archeology Channels’ investigation in the lagoon of Nikumaroro Island - a locale that anyone listening will be very familiar with. I couldn’t write this if I tried.

    Oh, and one more thing. In the middle of all of this, our sitting president just called for the United States Government to immediately release the Earhart files.

    Tonight, I’m joined by two men that are making their Chasing Earhart podcast debuts. One is part of my original 25. And the other is at the center of everything Nauticos is doing for their next trip. We couldn’t ask for a better duo to open up all they can, in their efforts to finally finish this story - perhaps once and for all.

    Let's get to work. Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. This is Jeff Morris and Rod Blocksome of Nauticos.

    LINKS:
    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:
    • Nauticos Official Website
    • Amelia Rose Earhart's Official Website
    • Amelia Rose Earhart on Youtube
    • "Nauticos Reveals Breakthrough Data and Announces New Expedition to Locate Amelia Earhart's Plane" @ PR Wire
    • "Trump orders declassification and release of Amelia Earhart files nearly 90 years after aviator’s disappearance" @ The NY Post
    • Amelia Mary Earhart @ The FBI Vault

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    54 mins
  • S3 Ep30: The Aviator & the Showman: A Conversation with Laurie Gwen Shapiro

    S3 Ep30: The Aviator & the Showman: A Conversation with Laurie Gwen Shapiro
    Jul 16 2025
    So much of Amelia Earhart’s story lives in the spaces between facts—the hours unaccounted for, the voices never heard again, the enigmatic whispers of survival. Those unanswered questions keep us chasing, keep us listening for what might still be found.Over this rebrand, we’ve traced radio logs, scoured sonar scans off remote atolls, sat with the families who watched the world collectively hold its breath in July of 1937. We’ve pushed beyond accepted timelines, challenged the orthodox accounts. Each step has carried us further from the airport in Oakland and closer to the moment when time itself seemed to slip through her fingers.Today, we shift our focus—not to new sonar anomalies or grid searches—but to the power of storytelling itself, and the women who champion it. We welcome a guest whose entire career has orbited around truth-telling.She’s a journalist, writer, and documentarian - someone who has long been fascinated by how stories shape us—and how we shape them in turn. Her work spans genres, subjects, decades. Whether she’s exploring women's inner lives or investigating hidden histories, her lens is always clear, and always curious.In her new book, she turns her attention to reckoning with the unknown—not in search of wreckage or coordinates, but to dig into the emotional fallout, the cultural aftershocks that reverberate long after an airplane ever disappears. She’s been asking questions like, "How do we grieve someone we never knew?" "How does a myth persist when facts remain elusive?"Over the last season, we’ve heard from explorers, navigators, and forensic experts all alike. We’ve tracked timelines, re‑evaluated eyewitness accounts, and examined cryptic newspaper clippings reeking of both desperation and hope. All the while, we’ve felt the pull of Earhart’s silhouette—her strength, her ambition, her solitude, and the void she left behind.Tonight, we step back. We step into the stories left untold: letters never sent home, journals never written, and the echo of words like ‘we’re running low’ drifting in static. We’ll talk about mortality, myth-making, and memory. About how the flight of one aviatrix became a collective heartbeat for generations. Tonight's guest journey into that runway of remembrance might just teach us more about our own need to chase—to connect, to understand, to grieve.It’s part reflection, part excavation. But we’re not chasing debris this time. We’re chasing meaning.So, whether you’ve been with us since the very first broadcast, or this is your first descent into Earhart’s world, stay with me. Because these are the stories that don’t end in a disappearance. They begin to live anew—in the telling.Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From New York City, this is Laurie Gwen Shapiro. LINKS: Our Website Vanished on Twitter Vanished on Instagram Vanished on TikTok Vanished Facebook Discussion Group Chasing Earhart on Facebook Chasing Earhart on Twitter SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:Laurie's Official Website The Aviator & the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon @ Amazon Laurie on Instagram Laurie on Twitter Laurie on Facebook 'Amelia Earhart’s Complicated Legacy and Horrible Husband' @ The NY TImes ‘The Aviator and the Showman’ Review: A Marriage in the Clouds' @ WSJ
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    1 hr and 27 mins
  • S3 Ep29: Amelia Earhart Myth & Memory: A Conversation with Amy Lutz

    S3 Ep29: Amelia Earhart Myth & Memory: A Conversation with Amy Lutz
    Jun 14 2025
    When I say the Amelia Earhart/Fred Noonan case is a monster, you know I’m telling the truth. In 2017, I began my journey into this case publicly. And if there’s one thing I discovered right away, it’s that this case? The one we’ve been covering for well over a hundred episodes now? It’s full of misinformation. It’s gotten so bad that it becomes overwhelming when you start to look at it. And if you choose to answer the why to that question, you might find that maybe we’re all partially to blame for where this case currently stands.

    So how do we shift the narrative? Where in the world do we begin to dismantle even one of these theories? As it turns out the answer came a couple of months ago, when one of our listeners Becky Ott, posted a photo in our Facebook discussion group for Vanished. The photo was taken outside the St. Charles Missouri County Library and it was of a sign that read Discover the Past Amelia Earhart: Myth & Memory.

    The presenter that night is also tonight's guest.

    I’ve believed in synergy all my life, but I can’t explain how it works. It just does - and it almost always occurs at just the right moment, doesn’t it? Thanks to Becky’s post and her follow up with more information, I was able to connect with a guest that’s making her Chasing Earhart debut right now. And she’s about to pull the linchpin on everything you thought you knew about the Amelia Earhart case. You’re not ready for this, but we’re gonna give it to ya anyway. Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. By way of St. Louis Missouri, This is Amy Lutz.

    LINKS:
    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING:
    • Amelia Earhart Myth & Memory by Amy Lutz @ UMSL.edu
    • Amy Lutz on X
    • Amelia Earhart Lives @ Amazon
    • The Search for Amelia Earhart @ Amazon
    • Amelia Earhart: Does Photo Show she Died a Japanese Prisoner? @ BBC
    • Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence @ Wikipedia
    • The Japanese Government’s Offer of Assistance to Help Find Amelia Earhart, July 1937 @ The National Archives
    • Flight for Freedom @ Wikipedia
    • 'Flight for Freedom,' a Film Speculation on Fate of Woman Flier, With Rosalind Russell in Lead, at the Music Hall @ The NY Times
    • Facts and Fiction in the Search for Amelia Earhart @ Air & Space
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    57 mins
  • S3 Ep28: The Ghost of Gardner Island: A Conversation with John Kada

    S3 Ep28: The Ghost of Gardner Island: A Conversation with John Kada
    May 6 2025
    We’re 27 episodes into my little experiment with this rebrand now - I never thought we’d still be going. It continues to baffle me. One of the things I really wanted to do when I decided to bring the show back was to make sure I brought new voices into the ongoing conversation that we’ve been having for decades. If you follow the pattern closely though, these last 27 episodes tell a bigger story. And if you’re really keen, you might notice that I like to do my best to manifest guests on this show. My manifesting must have been working overtime, because tonight’s guest has been a long time coming. You might have heard of his blog - It’s called the Ghost of Gardner Island. And there are an awful lot of people that will tell you that the work that’s featured there is nothing short of a master-class in research.

    Tonight, we run through the details of an investigation that began with little more than a follow up question and ended with a reversal in direction for one of Castaway's marquee artifacts - one thought to have belonged to navigator Fred Noonan.

    Some might call him a disrupter of sorts - a man whose own work has rattled the cages of one of this case's biggest summations. Others refer to him as one of the brightest Earhart researchers to come along in decades. And I tend to side with those guys. If we’ve done our best to showcase why castaway makes sense for the ultimate explanation of Earhart and Noonan’s demise, consider tonight a rebuttal of sorts and then, you tell me.

    Say his name, and he shall appear. Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. From New York City, this is John Kada.

    LINKS
    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING
    • John's The Ghost of Gardner Island Blog
    • The 1940's Sextant Box Identified? @ Tom King's Blog
    • Bushnell Sextant Box @ TIGHAR's Official Website
    • Luke Field Inventory @ TIGAHR's Official Website
    • BVARC Dec 2020 Tom NY0V An HF Systems Engineering Approach in the Search for Amelia Earhart’s L10E @ YouTube
    • Richard Blackburn Black, USNR @ USAS1939
    • Amelia Didn’t Know Radio by Captain Almon A. Gray, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired) @ The U.S. Naval Institute's Official Website
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    52 mins
  • S3 Ep27: In the Palaces of Crowded Kings: A Conversation with Kenton Spading

    S3 Ep27: In the Palaces of Crowded Kings: A Conversation with Kenton Spading
    Mar 22 2025
    Several years ago, I started hearing about a man making his way through the Amelia Earhart/Fred Noonan disappearance case. What caught my attention wasn’t just his research—it was the way his name kept coming up.

    From the moment I became involved in this story, I’ve been drawn to the lesser-known nuances that make up the towering mystery of Amelia Earhart. As I got to know people in the field, one name surfaced repeatedly. No matter the theory, no matter the angle, everyone seemed to be talking about the same guy. He’s written books, published papers, and contributed to nearly every version of this story—including his appearance on Vanished: Amelia Earhart, where he explored a well-known collection of bones discovered on Nikumaroro. That discovery, made by British colonial officer Gerald Gallagher, remains one of the most hotly debated pieces of evidence in this case. Were those bones the final remains of Amelia and Fred, stranded castaways on a remote Pacific island? Or is the truth something else entirely?

    When I looked into his work, I immediately understood why he was so widely respected. He doesn’t care about being right. He thinks bigger. His neutrality has allowed him to move freely across this story, collaborating with some of the most prominent figures in the investigation—people who sit in opposing camps, defending starkly different theories.

    How does someone do that? How do you keep an open mind in a case that seems determined to pull you down an endless rabbit hole? Tonight, we find out. It’s time to open your ears and your mind. We’re making stops on Nikumaroro, Orona, and Buka—by way of St. Paul, Minnesota.

    Welcome back to Chasing Earhart. This is Kenton Spading.

    LINKS
    • Our Website
    • Vanished on Twitter
    • Vanished on Instagram
    • Vanished on TikTok
    • Vanished Facebook Discussion Group
    • Chasing Earhart on Facebook
    • Chasing Earhart on Twitter
    SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING
    • A Lost Sailor or Amelia Earhart? Lost Norwich City Crewmen: Potential Sources of the Human Remains Discovered on Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro Island) in 1940 @ Academia.edu
    • St. Paul employee part of team searching for Amelia Earhart @ US Army Corps of Engineers
    • Null Hypothesis @ Wikipedia
    • Amelia Earhart's Shoes: Is the Mystery Solved? @ Amazon
    • Vanished: Amelia Earhart "Left for Dead" (Part Two) @ Spotify
    • The Chater Report @ TIGHAR's Official Website
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    41 mins