Kanata History Group Meeting

Wed. Nov 18, at 2:00 p.m.

     The Bradley Retirement Residence

                   130 Goulbourn Forced Road, Kanata, ON

Amelia Earhart’s Fate is Not a Mystery

Many of us know of Amelia Earhart only as a flyer who disappeared sometime in the first half of the 20th century, and that her fate is a great, enduring mystery.

A sizable number of conspiracy theories have explained that mystery, ranging from a popular one based on the plot of 1943 movie Flight for Freedom starring Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray, to the usual suspects: aliens and foreigners.

The truth is more straightforward.

Today, there is an enormous weight of individual but interlocking pieces of evidence that precisely outline her fate. What is more shocking is that a number of influential people had strong suspicions within days of her disappearance as to where she ended up ... in plenty of time to have rescued her and saved her from a truly miserable fate.

This story is a classic case of the truism “Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by ego, stupidity, incompetence and bad luck.” The evidence that pointed to the spot in 1937 still points there, but is supplemented by a great deal of evidence discovered in 1940, plus a wealth of evidence assembled in the past 30 years.

Join us for a story full of twists and turns and many surprises.

Ian MacKay

Ian was raised in Vancouver, but at various times he has been a resident of Quebec City; Cincinnati, Ohio; Kingston, Jamaica; and Ottawa. He is retired from a 40-year career as professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, where he taught in both official languages.

For more than a decade Ian has been closely following developments in the search for Amelia Earhart’s fate, informed by careful, science-based research from an American interest group centred on historic aircraft. He is currently writing a historical novel based on the famous venture during which Earhart disappeared. While a novel demands at least some fiction, Ian’s talk on Earhart sticks to the facts as best they can be determined.

Ian lives with his wife Jo-Anne and greatly misses the dogs they used to share their lives with. He enjoys reading, travelling, writing, fixing things, dinner parties (as host or chief cook or guest), trying out weird recipes, and generally trying to think of ways to make things better.