I’ve never involved myself very deeply in most conspiracy theories. Life is too short, and there are creeks I haven’t fished.

That’s not to say that I don’t have opinions based on superficial observations, which combined with 85 cents can get you a cup of coffee if you are a senior citizen.

For instance, I do not think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John Kennedy. It’s just a gut feeling. And I know that gut feelings don’t hold up in court nor are they even close to the scientific method. Yet they are sometimes right. And I have a right to my opinions, and that brings us back to that cup of coffee.

Though I don’t think Oswald acted alone, I haven’t buried myself in the Warren Report. I’m just not a “grassy knoll” person.

Then there’s that matter of Roswell, New Mexico, where some people think a spacecraft crashed many years ago and alien bodies were retrieved and put on ice. Some people think our government is still in the process of re-engineering this spaceship. Maybe if they are successful, then they can ponder why the speaker systems at most drive-through restaurants are about as useless as two cans with string tied between them.

I do believe that there is life elsewhere out there in the universe. And I have wondered if they play football and pick butterbeans. Beyond that I have no reason to debate one way or another the Roswell mystery. Given some events here on earth in recent years, I would also suggest if there are beings out there, they must be much smarter than us.

Now when I say I have not involved myself very deeply in conspiracy theories, there is one exception … Amelia Earhart.

I have watched numerous documentaries about the disappearance of the famous aviator back in 1937. And I fully believe that she was taken captive by the Japanese because they thought she was a spy and eventually was put to death along with her navigator on the island of Saipan.

Just this past week, I watched yet another documentary on the History Channel about her fate. And hurrah for History Channel for a program that truly fits its title. 

In this documentary, a former FBI agent/administrator has pursued numerous pieces of evidence that all add up to an experienced aviator not being able to find Howland Island in the South Pacific and then, running low on fuel, ditching her plane in the shallows off a small atoll in the Marshall Islands. Photos, eyewitness accounts, scrap metal and testimony from two Marines who were discreetly ordered to dig up two bodies buried on Saipan are among the particles that all pile up as tremendous circumstantial evidence. And while gut feelings may not be admissible in court, a bucket full of circumstantial evidence may lead to a verdict.

I don’t know how many people believe there is life elsewhere in the universe and whether beings can actually travel light years into parts unknown. But I do know that Amelia Earhart was a real person. I know she was a renowned flier. And I know that her plane was real, manufactured by the Lockheed Corporation. And it’s a fact she disappeared.

Between the lines in this documentary, there is a suggestion that our U.S. government covered up facts about her disappearance relative to international complexities in a wartime atmosphere. I don’t have a strong opinion about that, although I think it’s possible. Governments love secrets. And the bones recovered on Saipan by the two Marines have disappeared. Go figure!

Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com