On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart climbed into her Lockheed Electra and took off from Lae, New Guinea, heading toward Howland Island — a narrow strip of land in the Pacific she never reached. Somewhere along that last leg, she vanished. No confirmed wreckage. No final message. Just silence.

This episode of Fobia retraces the timeline of that day — from her departure and last radio transmissions to the vast and chaotic search effort that followed. We look at what was known, what wasn’t, and how the official investigation struggled to make sense of her disappearance.

Over the years, a few theories have circulated. Some believe Earhart may have survived the flight and ended up as a castaway on Nikumaroro. Others claim she was captured by Japanese forces after a forced landing. But these ideas remain unproven. No verified wreckage, remains, or recordings ever closed the case.

In 1939, Earhart was declared legally dead in a U.S. court. Yet the fascination has never faded. Her name resurfaces regularly — in classified file dumps, in documentaries, and in grainy photos passed off as evidence. The mystery persists, not because of what we know, but because of everything we never found.