Saipan architect unveils planned Earhart Memorial

This blog is becoming — at least temporarily — a running account of events surrounding the proposed Earhart Memorial Monument on Saipan.  You will recall my March 2 post that announced the recent development  on Saipan, Finally, some good Earhart news from Saipan, linking to the story “Group to build Amelia Earhart monument on Saipan,” that appeared in the Feb. 7 Marianas Variety (“Micronesia’s Leading Newspaper Since 1972”).

On Feb. 14, Marianas Variety published my opinion piece, that heartily applauded this welcome and unexpected news, “Amelia Earhart’s Saipan fate,” expressing my profound approval of the long-overdue decision to honor the First Lady of Flight at the location of her tragic and untimely death sometime after her disappearance in early July 1937.

This memorial’s design looks fantastic, in my opinion, especially considering the $200,000 estimated price tag for its completion.  Of course its size is vital, and the plan that architect Herman Cabrera has unveiled indicates the diameter as 30 feet, quite impressive, with the statue height projected as 12 feet, and the base at 4 feet, 6 inches.   

Artist’s rendition of the proposed Amelia Earhart Memorial Monument on Saipan, sent by local Saipan architect Ramon Cabrera following the Feb. 7 Marianas Variety story that announced this amazing development for the first time.

“It is my belief that  every human being born has the right to be given the honor and recognition on his/her death, wherever or whatever circumstances death presents,” Marie S. Castro, vice president of the Earhart Memorial Monument committee, told me in a March 2 email.  “Saipan and the U.S. supporters join in this effort for a noble cause in honoring the famous first American woman pilot who ended her life on Saipan.”

On March 7, TIGHAR’s Tom King stuck the first blow for the obstructionists, penning another of his typical missives, appealing to the uninformed biases of the indoctrinated masses on Saipan.  King’s sanctimonious piece, Regarding Amelia Earhart’s monument on Saipan, was well received by the ignorant Facebook crowd, attracting well over 400 “Likes” to date; compare this to the paltry three that my own piece, Amelia Earhart’s Saipan fate, garnered on Feb. 7. 

If the Facebook reaction to King is any indication of the way the winds are blowing on Saipan, the prospects for the successful completion of the monument could be quite bleak.  But I prefer to believe that those whose support is vital — the elders and over-60 generation of Saipan — are not in the habit of clicking “Like” in order to join the mindless horde, if they’re even reading these articles online at all. 

I responded to King’s dreck as you might expect, not with a moronic, mob-following “Like,” but with this comment, also posted on March 7:

Dr. King’s sophistry is well known among those in the small Earhart research community, and his unending, noxious advocacy for the phony Nikumaroro “hypothesis” is often cited as a prime example of the definition of insanity.  Not a single artifact in countless trips over 30 years that’s been dug up from the Nikumaroro garbage dumps has been forensically linked to Amelia Earhart or Fred Noonan, despite the constant drum beat of our corrupt media establishment telling us to buy this snake oil — and many of the ignorant and gullible have indeed bought it, much to their chagrin once they realized the Nikumaroro bill of goods is rotten at its core.

In fact there are actually no real “theories” in the Earhart disappearance, as the word is defined. We have the truth — supported by several dozens of witnesses and documents — that Amelia Earhart crash-landed in the Marshalls, was taken to Saipan by the Japanese, and died there, as did Noonan, at some unknown date before the American invasion in June 1944.  And we have lies, like Nikumaroro, that have been glorified and raised to the status of “theories” by an establishment desperate to protect the checkered legacy of our president at the time of Earhart’s death, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As I constantly stress in “Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last,” and on my blog, www.Eaharttruth.com, the truth in the Earhart case has been a sacred cow in Washington since the earliest days of the search for Amelia.  The time is long overdue for the truth to be recognized and accepted, and for the parasites who have made their livings by peddling lies about Amelia’s sad fate to go away and find more honest ways to earn livings.

Likewise, there is no real Earhart “mystery.”  Some in the U.S. government are well aware of what happened to the fliers, and the physical evidence that would reveal the truth lies in the deepest recesses of our national security apparatus, known to a scant few custodians of this precious evidence. I explain all this in my book and in my blog, and won’t go on at length here.

Undated photo of Marie S. Castro, now 84, the primary mover behind the recently approved initiative to build a monument to Amelia Earhart at the Saipan International Airport. 

I closed by announcing my invitation by Marie Castro and other Earhart Memorial committee members, including President Donald C. Barcinas, Secretary Frances M. Sablan,  Herman Cabrera (architect), Carlos A. Shoda, Evelyna A. Shoda and Ambrose Bennett, to join them as the committee’s U.S. representative, a great honor I will forever cherish.  “People like Dr. King and others who hate the truth,” I wrote, “are naturally dead set against the memorial’s success, and his letter is likely only the beginning of what could be a protracted, bitter battle to make the Earhart Memorial Monument a tangible reality.”

Marie Castro agrees.  “I read what came out on the Marianas Variety this morning,” she wrote in a March 6 email.  “How many professionals with Ph.D.s  could come out with all sorts of theories to prove the truth?  There is only one truth.  Let’s help one another to prove what’s right, and the truth will finally prevail.”  From Marie’s pen to God’s ears.

Better news arrived the next day.  “Mike, I have no idea the magnitude of this project [and] where it is heading to,” Marie wrote.  “Yesterday, we had a power point presentation on Amelia E. with the Marianas Visitors Authority.  They seemed receptive to our idea of the monument.  Our committee was encouraged by their responses.  You and I together, with my wonderful team hopefully will someday unravel the mind of the unbelievers.”

On March 13, a shortened version of Les Kinney’s March 9 TIGHAR rebuttal on this blog was published in the Marianas Variety.  Titled ” ‘Earhart bones’ just another of TIGHAR’s many false claims,” Kinney’s informed dissection of TIGHAR’s phony bones scheme was as badly received by the clueless Saipan Facebook bunch as my own piece was on Feb. 7, at last glimpse drawing just two “Likes”!  The great Ralph Waldo Emerson had something memorable to say about such group-think phenomena:  “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  See the comments section for some interesting banter between Tom King, who knows that the successful completion of the Earhart Memorial threatens TIGHAR’s cash cow, Kinney, myself and a few other interested parties.

Also on March 13, the snail-slow U.S. Postal Service finally delivered my check and a copy of The Truth at Last to Marie’s Saipan mailbox.  “I took it to church,” she wrote me.  “I found the President [Donald Barcinas] there.  Our cousin Bishop Tomas A. Camacho, our first Chamorro Bishop passed away.  I told the President, ‘It is the right place to open our first checks from the U.S.  The Good Lord will be with us on this project, our Mission of Truth.’  Thank you.”

In closing, again I ask for your generous donations in any amount to the Earhart Memorial on Saipan — an eminently worthy cause that deserves far more support than it’s getting.  So few care about the truth, and every one of you is needed to make this dream a reality.  I can’t address each one of you by name, but I always respond to every legitimate email you send.  Without your help, the memorial’s failure is inevitable.  Please make your check payable to: Amelia Earhart Memorial Monument, Inc., and send to AEMMI, c/o Marie S. Castro, P.O. Box 500213, Saipan MP 96950.  Thank you.