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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Amelia Earhart's final moments may have been broadcast around the world days after her plane disappeared in 1937, according to a group that analyzed radio distress calls.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) believes the aviation pioneer waded out to her crashed Lockheed Electra on the reef at the then-uninhabited Gardner Island to call for help, it wrote in a research paper.

[...] The Electra's radio could only communicate within a few hundred miles, but the transmitter also put out harmonics that allowed the signal to reach beyond that.

"High harmonic frequencies 'skip' off the ionosphere and can carry great distances, but clear reception is unpredictable," the paper says.

As a result, the signal was heard by people using shortwave radios at home in locations like Texas, Kentucky, Wyoming, Florida and Toronto.

In St. Petersburg, Florida, a teenage girl  transcribed phrases like: "waters high," "water's knee deep -- let me out"  and "help us quick," the Washington Post notes.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission