Overview
- The National Archives posted an initial 4,624 pages of intelligence, military and agency records after President Trump ordered a full declassification in September.
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said additional Earhart materials will be posted on a rolling basis as reviews are completed.
- Documents include the Coast Guard cutter Itasca’s July 1937 radio log with Earhart’s last recorded transmission at about 8:43 a.m., plus NSA intercepts, weather reports, aircraft condition notes and search maps.
- Historians and recovery specialists say much of the trove was already public and is unlikely to overturn the prevailing view that Earhart and Fred Noonan ran out of fuel near Howland Island.
- The archive also compiles decades of rumors and hoaxes, while a separate planned field probe of a possible wreck site on Nikumaroro has been postponed to next year for permits and cyclone-season timing.