Rachel Hartigan: What Amelia Earhart knew about not explaining yourself

Welcome back. I'm really delighted you're joining us here for episode 207. And right now I want you to picture this. You are on a remote coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It's brutal heat. You're surrounded by archaeologists sifting through coral debris because on this island coral looks almost identical to bone. There are cadaver dogs, there's tension, there's hope, and there's one journalist sitting with her notebook. Watching it all unfold, asking the question everyone there is trying to answer.

What actually really happened to Amelia Earhart? That journalist is my guest today. Rachel Hartigan is her name, and she's spent twelve years at National Geographic as a writer, reporter, and editor. She covered everything from the genetics of persimmon trees to women's suffrage, and before that she was The Washington at the Washington Post editing the Book World section.

She's introduced authors at the National Book Festival. She has stood in the mountains surrounded by young buffalo in Montana as they were released into the wild. She told me she could not hear a single thing over the noise and then watch them disappear across the prairie. She's not the swashbuckling journalist who dives into underwater pyramids in Sudan.

Her words, not mine. But she has done something arguably harder. She has spent years going deep, really deep into one of history's most enduring mysteries. And she went back to that Pacific Island not once but twice.

The result is her new book, Lost, Amelia Earhart's three mysterious deaths and one extraordinary life. Now I want to flag something before we get into it. Because this is not just a book about a plane that disappeared in nineteen thirty seven. Yes, we get into the three main theories too.

But did Earhart crash near the Marshall Islands and get captured by Japanese soldiers? Did she land on Nikumaroro Island and die there, stranded? Or did she simply run out of fuel and go down into the ocean? Or maybe it's one of my theories that I'm calling out during that episode too.

But here's what really grabbed me when I started reading this book and talking to Rachel. This is a story about a woman who refused to over explain herself, who did things because she wanted to, because it felt right, without spending her life justifying it to everyone around her. In an era when women were expected to fit a very particular mold, she didn't. She founded an aviation organisation for women that still exists today.

She built a public persona. She had an unconventional marriage and she kept flying. There's a lesson in that I think a lot of us could use right now. Such an important lesson.

We also talk today about what it actually means to be an introvert who built a career on asking strangers to hard questions. Rachel is someone who, by her own admission, still dreads picking up the phone before a difficult call, and then does it anyway. She separates her anxiety from her ability, which is honestly one of the cleanest pieces of self awareness I've heard in a long, long time. We talk about leaving a place that had become part of her identity, National Geographic, after twelve years.

And what comes after that? And we talk about what the people searching for Earhart Some of them obsessive, some of them willing to upend their whole lives to go to the remote islands can actually teach us about the very human need to find answers. Rachel Hartigan, author, journalist, someone who ex can explain dolphin brains and deep ocean mysteries and make both feel completely alive. You can find her book Lost on Amazon.

com. In various bookshops like Barnes and Noble, for example, or at rachelhartiganauthor.com, where you also find links to her social channels that we're gonna pop into the show notes. But for now I say let's get into it.

Enjoy today's episode. Hi Rachel. Such a pleasure to have you with us here today. Thanks for having me.

How are you today and where in the world are you today? I am in Tacoma Park, Maryland, which is just a few blocks away from Washington, DC. So, and it's actually sunny today, so I'm very happy about that. Yes, aren't we all indeed?

Yeah. I ask you, where are you today? Because travel adventures for work and outside of work have taken you to so many different places. And when I meet people like you, I always wonder, ooh, what's their next adventure?

Where are they now? And I can't wait to talk about some of your adventures that you have experienced. And we're gonna talk about your wonderful book, Lost. I have it right here with me.

I haven't finished it yet at all, but I take my time to really get through it and to read this amazing story. But I really want to share with all of our listeners a little bit more about your story first. And After our initial conversation, I thought, whoo, I wonder what Rachel's childhood was like. Was she one of those kids who had books all over the place and you could see in a corner when other people were or kids were running outside to play and just getting, you know, the head into the book.

what was it like for you? That was pretty much it. I Yeah, I grew up in Reno, Nevada in Western United States, and which is, you know, it's desert, but it's kind of suburbia too. And in a house full of books, my dad was a professor, my mom was a teacher.

And I just I read all the time. And you know how kids read where they're just they're trying to read themselves into the book so that they can be living in the book. That is absolutely how I read. So it was, and I was I was fairly shy.

So there were there were two benefits. One was just the books and one was sort of a hideout within them. Yeah. So a hideout to dive into your own world.

What was the hideout about? Well, a hideout just to when I was feeling shy or, you know, nervous about being with other people. I mean, I had friends and everything, but yeah, I needed a break from people sometimes and books were a wonderful thing for that. yes.

I just Came from my son's room. So for me, it's a wee bit later in the day. I always or usually record these sessions when it's around eight to nine o'clock, up to ten o'clock my time. And our family tradition is we read before he goes to bed.

He's five. And over the last few years we would have read, you know, little comics or traditional little kids' books and stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for the last six months he has become obsessed with Harry Potter.

very British thing. And coincidentally his name is Harry as well. so we started reading Harry Potter books. No pictures, no images, no illustrations.

Uh-huh. And I can't tell you how satisfying that is for me as a parent, and seemingly at least for him as well. you learn to dive into that world and I've seen all the movies obviously, but and I've read as a teenager a few of the books as well. But now getting into this world and kind of in his imagination of how he sees that world, yeah.

that's better than any meditation I've ever done. Yes, it's and it's so cozy too to read to your kid at night. Yeah, I I my son is 21, so. I don't read to him anymore.

He can read all by himself. But yes, I mean, and just to see things through their eyes. I mean, we went through a huge dinosaur phase. So we just read everything about dinosaurs and not just the main dinosaurs, but all the side dinosaurs that you don't even remember hearing about.

And just watching their brains make sense of it and I don't know, it's just the brains of that age are so amazing. They just take in so much information. It's really I envy you a little bit to be at that age. I I have to say I'm embracing it big time.

because it's you've just alluded to this time goes so quickly and then you know yeah, it's kind of shocking. You mentioned two things. Let me start with the part around you being or you were shy when you were a kid and you shared with me last time we spoke that you are more of an introvert. And I think I said to you I love having introverts around me.

I wonder how your introversion actually helps you step into your various worlds of writing books, of You know, creating stories for yourself and for others as well. So how did introversion really help your life, your career? When did it get in the way? well, it does help because I think it has made me much more observant of people.

I mean, that's one thing my dad said about me. It's like you always wanted to be where the people are, but you were kind of watching what was going on rather than just being a part of it. But I think I noticed a lot more than maybe other people might have. and that helps with journalism because you're trying to see, okay, well, what's going on over there?

And how does that person feel about what they're doing? And you know, you can pick up on unspoken clues and things like that. And that's always how I've done a lot of reporting just through observation. So that's helped it.

The it's it gets in the way sometimes, you know, right before I need to make a phone call and I think, I can't do this. This is so hard. And then I make it and it's totally fine, which I know, but we have to go through that every time. So it can sometimes make me not just make me more nervous than I need to be about reaching out to a source or doing whatever I need to do to do the reporting.

But Ultimately I get over that. It just sometimes takes a little bit of energy to get over that. Yeah, and that's what it's really about, right? It isn't about being the shyest person in a room, it's about the energy it takes.

Yes. to connect with others, to push through. Sometimes we just need it in journalism, right? To remain persistent and influence as well to get that story or to convince people of a story or whatever it is.

and that takes energy. I can I can imagine. Yeah. And then you kind of need to refresh yourself afterwards so that you're ready to go back into the fray.

Yeah. It sounds like you've built a lot of awareness around it as well and identified strategies. I don't know if you would call it strategies, but strategies to deal with it and, you know, to overcome that initial hurdle more quickly. is that the truth?

And if so, what might be some of those let's call them strategies? Well, I think one thing that I've learned is that just because I'm feeling reluctant to do something or nervous about it doesn't mean I can't do it. There that's almost separate things. The skill it takes to do something, whether you know, conduct an interview or write a story or whatever it might be, is not the same as my anxiety about it.

And just knowing that is very helpful. Because then I can say, well, I don't I can just do the things that I know. might ease my anxiety, you know, take deep breaths, go for a walk. medication helps too.

You know, all the things that take care of almost of the physical reaction so that I can do the thing that I actually have the skills to do. So I don't know if that explains it. Just identifying, I think, is the is the main thing. Yeah.

And I love what you said at the start in particular, you know, just because you feel it in that moment doesn't mean that's what's the reality basically. There are two different things. and that's a real powerful statement from my perspective. Yeah, it doesn't mean it's the truth.

You know, your mind can tell you things or your body can tell you things that aren't it's reacting to something, but it's not necessarily the truth about what you're capable of. Yes. And I hope you often tell yourself or at least regularly tell yourself what you are capable of. I mean, just starting to read the book Lost, just reading more about you, doing my own research, I was like, my goodness, Rachel has done some amazing things and gone on some real, real adventures.

And I'd love for you to share some of those adventures that you've experienced throughout your career. When you work for a National Geographic, perhaps even the Washington Post, you know, with the audience and inspire them with your own journey. Yeah, well, I don't when you imagine a National Geographic writer, I am not necessarily who you'd imagine. I have some former colleagues who are that person.

They are totally swashbuckling and they go out in, you know, into the desert with shakes and writing. camels and go hawk hunting. And I have a very good friend who has gone, she has dived in underwater pyramids in Sudan. There are these pyramids just like in Egypt, but they have been inundated with water.

And so she's dived in them. And it's dark and it's scary. So I have not d done that kind of thing. I have done some cool things.

I did write a story, I profile of a A man who is trying to put together all this land in northern the northern US to make it large enough for migrating populations like buffalo and elk and antelope. So he's piecing together with public and private land. And I went out and visited him in Montana. And he and his organisation were releasing young buffalo into the wild.

So I got to stand in them, they had them all in a corral and Young buffalo are not small buffalo. They were really, really big. And they were like, no, you know, come in and stand in the middle. They'll just run around you and you don't need to worry.

So they were running around and making, I mean, they're just so loud and so big you couldn't hear anything else. So that was a tremendous experience. And then watching them just take off across the prairie was thrilling. And that I could never have done that if I hadn't been working in National Geographic.

So I I have gotten to do some interesting things. when I was at the Washington Post, I was an editor of the book section. And, you know, I got to meet amazing authors like Ann Patchett. who else did I meet?

I met and introduced a lot of authors at the National Book Festival, and that was really fun. So I mean, I have I've been very lucky in what I've been able to do. You started right away describing the kind of journalists that you would or people would usually imagine when they think about journalists at the National for National Geographic. who were you as a journalist for National Geographic?

How would you describe yourself without the buffaloes, which I find very exciting as well? Quite scary in itself. Yeah. I who was I?

I was somebody who could kind of do everything like a jack of all trades. I could write long stories or super short ones. I could write the graphic, you know, the text for the amazing graphics and maps that National Geographic does on dolphin brains or how fracking works, you know, the natural gas mining. I could write about science.

I could write about history. I never have been somebody who wanted to have a beat. I wanted or specialise in a specific subject just because I'm interested in lots of different things. So I think I grew to have a reputation as someone who.

I mean, this sounds egotistical, but basically could do anything. If they needed something that's was a little bit tricky, I could do it. I would figure out how it would be done. And so I did a lot of writing and editing.

I edited a lot of stories that were maybe well reported, but not very well written. And so had to sort of cut away to get to some to the actual story so that we could publish it. I I just did so many different things. And so I I think I was I turned out to be a very reliable person.

And I think that's one reason I was asked to go on the expedition to led to that led to this book, is they figured, well, she hasn't done anything like this before, but she can probably do it. So I was like, okay, let's see if I can. But I did. That that is incredible.

So when you when you are asked to get into a certain subject, right? A specialist subject, how do you approach it? Because there's a certain complexity behind many of those topics. How do you go about it?

I would usually read some kind of basic information about it. I kept an ongoing list of scientific terms that I had to look up. Just so that I would remember them, because I'm much more of a liberal arts person than a scientific person. But I I found that I could write about science or edit science because I didn't for a general audience, because I had to have the scientists and the experts explain things to me and then I could explain them in a clear way to a lay audience.

So I I started at the basics, but when I was. You know, interviewing scientists, I was always saying, just explain it to me like I'm your old aunt who doesn't really understand what you do. And they were usually pretty patient about that because I think mostly I mean a lot of we had quite a few science journalists who actually did have PhDs and they were very they really did know the science, but I was more someone who You know, I'm pretty good at breaking complicated subjects down and explaining them for a lay audience.

I I find it so interesting. I would never ever even dare to compare myself with your insights and knowledge. However, some light similarity is that while I do specialise in a specific topic, I also work with many different industries and individuals and personalities. And almost every new piece of work I pick up feels different.

Yeah. Yeah. And I find that super exciting doing the research around the industries, the organisations, the dynamics in it, the real challenges, the human behaviour behind it on my side. and and you know, going down a rabbit hole from time to time to learn more and to become the the expert.

so I have to stop myself, but it's fascinating. And the knowledge you gain and the understanding as well. It's brilliant. Yeah, it's fun.

Now you have been at National Geographic for a long period of time, over a decade. Yes. Well, I'm not there now, but I was there for I think 12 years, almost 12 years. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's that that that's really long. And I can imagine might be different for you that when you have been in this space for such a long time, it becomes a part of your identity. And I wonder there are so there are two questions.

I wonder A, what was the driver for you to say, I'm gonna leave? This is now it. and B, was there an identity shift that happened for you? Or did you not even realise that National Geographic was this one world of me, this part, but there might be another one as well?

Yeah, I think National Geographic. Is especially a strong identity. I mean, I think it's hard to leave there and not still feel so attached because it's such a cultural icon. And it's also a very I don't know how to phrase it, they very self-consciously brands itself and its people as part of National Geographic.

It's not just a job, you know, it's a mission to do, to cover what National Geographic covers and support what it supports. So it was hard to leave. I mean, I had a lot of colleagues that I really loved, but well, I had there were a whole bunch of things going on. One, there was sort of a regime change that change things in ways that didn't really work for me.

And then I was trying to finish the book and I had a deadline in like two months. And I just couldn't see how I could finish the book and do my job, which was ramping up all the time. And then I had my father had died about six months before. And then I had another death in the family two years before.

So there was sort of this cumulative exhaustion. And I just, I was kind of tapped out. And so I thought, well, I should just work on the thing that's mine and not exhaust myself working on something for some other organ for this organisation that, you know, they can take or leave me. I mean, not my direct colleagues, but it was a corporation and this book.

Even though it was published with National Geographic, it was mine. So that's what I ended up doing. But it was hard. It wasn't necessarily the smartest financial decision I've ever made, but I think it was really necessary.

it's really hard to write a book and have a day job that's writing and editing. I just like I felt like I had sprained my brain. I didn't have any more words left. So I had to.

take a bit of a break and just focus on one thing. it sounds inspiring and brave to me what you have done. And again, the word that came up for you, listening to you, was awareness, a deep awareness of you used the word exhaustion that was going on for you. and listening to and feeling into the exhaustion and still being able to make a brave choice in this moment is like wow.

No, I don't think. Anybody or everybody would do that. because and that's human as well, we seek stability and safety and security. And you just said financially it wasn't the smartest choice.

No. And yet the security from what I heard was less strong than the sense of I need to listen to my body here, to my exhaustion, and what I really want to focus on is this book. And probably working through grief as well. Yeah, I just part of it was almost just a physical reaction.

Like I just I just couldn't do it. It's like I couldn't go that last mile, you know. So I I don't even know how well thought out it was, but I think it definitely made a difference and it let me deal with a lot of a lot of things that I needed to deal with. So glad I did it.

But yeah, I know a lot of people wouldn't do that. Yeah. So fast forward two years, what's life like for you now? Well, I the book that caused me to leave the job is now published.

It came out in March. And so now I'm thinking about what's it like to be an author who has a published book and figuring out all that and what I want to do next. Yeah, it's kind of wild because my weirdly it feels like my son and I are graduating at the same time. Like I graduated to become an author with a published book and he's graduated from college and he's figuring out what he's gonna do and I'm also figuring out what I'm going to do, even though I'm a good deal older than he is.

But it it does feel like you know, I don't know what next year is gonna be like. So I'm just kind of rolling with it and figuring out what I want to do. And earlier on I said, there are two things I want to ask you about. I asked you about one of them, the shyness.

your son so your son was the second part of it. in particular, how much of your adventurous mind or your inquisitive mind have you passed on to him and how I did show? yeah, I think it comes out in different ways. He is he's gone the science route.

He's a biology major. He wants to be a doctor. And he's just very excited about all of that. And that is very interesting to me because that's not how I the direction I went in education.

I think he's also a bit reserved and holds himself back a little bit, but I can see him trying to figure out what he needs to do, what he wants. to get himself to do what he wants to do, if that makes sense. And that's really amazing to watch, you know, him deciding to be brave or to move beyond the discomfort to do something. And then it might be something small, like go to a local rugby game, you know, join a pickup rugby game where he doesn't know anybody playing.

I mean, that's seems like it's small, but it's still great, you know, that you can do that. But he was a big supporter of the reporting I did for this book. I mean, I he was 13 when I went on the first expedition. Well, actually he was 12 and he turned 13 while I was away, which I felt so terrible about.

But he was just he just thought it was cool. And I don't know, he thought the fact that I was writing a book was really interesting. He keeps telling me how proud he is of me, which is amazing to hear. So Yeah, it's he's great.

and I should pick up on all the good stuff. I love that he openly shares that with you, you know. I'm proud of you, Mom. I mean, who doesn't want to hear that from their kids?

Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. And yet what I'm gonna focus on is a typical human being, is I felt horrible about h not being here for his thirteenth birthday.

Not because I want to give you, you know, take you on a guild trip. Absolutely not. but I can imagine you had various moments that felt like torn between, you know, being present for him, which means physically present in this moment, and going on expeditions, doing research, being away. how did you manage it?

Well, it was tricky. I mean, the tricky thing about the expeditions were like these two ex expeditions that I went on for the Amelia Earhart story was they were on the other side of the planet really isolated. So five day ship voyage from Fiji to this island called Nikumaroro. So if something happened to him or to me, it would be really hard to get back.

and that like I could almost feel feel, I mean, I don't feel like the umbilical cord anymore, but it does feel like that connection just gets so far away that it could snap. at the time, his father and I were together. So his father was there. And so it wasn't so unnerving.

But his father has since died. And so when I think about doing something like that now, even though he's grown, I still kind of worry about being so far away because you know he's he still needs me. I'm still only a parent at this point. So it's challenging, but I also wanted to model being doing these bold things to him.

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. And I love that you did that.

And you're gonna do that in the future as well. I have absolutely no doubt. Yeah. But you sound to me like a real trooper in life, overcoming some big, big challenges while looking for new adventures.

Right. Right. we have we have mentioned the book now a few times, and I promise I will get to it in a second. There's so much to unpack.

But as you know, I am focused in particular on women leaders. I'm really empowering women to step into their realness and to lead the best way they can. And when I think in a very cliche way about journalism, I still think it's more of a male. dominated area and I might be completely wrong.

But what what's some advice that you would give to a woman who's just starting out in journalism? Not a polished kind of advice, just some real helpful advice. What would you tell her? I would tell her to really focus on learning how to become a really good reporter.

Like because I I worry about in journalism. Now there's so many fewer journalists, there's lots of people who get give opinions on things. But really the the important thing is to be able to Tell these important stories about how real people are living. And the one thing I'm encouraged by is that there's a growth of these smaller journalistic operations that some of them are very local, like local to neighbourhoods or counties.

And they're trying to fill a space that has been abandoned. And I think if you can get into one of those areas and really build up your skills and build up your confidence that that will just allow you to grow as you move forward and just give you a strong foundation in journalism. I didn't go to journalism school and I always felt like I was a permanent apprentice. Like I was always just like, wait, I don't know how to do that.

I have to figure out how to do that. and I don't necessarily I mean, you can go to journalism school or not go to journalism school, but I think having a really on the ground experience is important just for one's personal career, but also in general for society at large. It's good if people are covering local issues. Yes.

Local issues and then with some real facts. Yes, exactly. I mean, the world of news is driving me personally completely crazy. I had this conversation with my husband last week when we were like, how do you know what's true and what's not true anymore?

You know? Yeah. and I noticed that, I mean, I'm reducing my news intake, for example, for various reasons. particularly my mental health, but I s still need and want to know what's going on in the world.

But I feel like I'm credibility checking everything I see pop up on social or various news channels depending on you know what political direction you prefer. and and just I I personally don't know anymore what kind of data and information to really trust. And that's for me in as well. Yeah it is it is really hard.

I mean I still There's still really good journalists out there and they're really good journalistic organisations. I think like going directly to those organisations rather than getting things through social media is probably best. Although I now get stuff through social media too. But yeah, I mean it's just hard to know what the bias is.

And if I have such mixed feelings about this idea that Journalism can be totally neutral because everybody has biases. And sometimes it's better if you know what they are, or if people saying, I am writing this from a liberal perspective or a conservative perspective, or I advocate for this, but this is what I'm reporting on. So at least you can say, Okay, well, this is what they're saying. I can see if somebody else is saying that, but I know where they're coming from at least.

But yeah, I I really think. in order to understand what's going on now, you really have to bring a lot of analysis to it. And I think fewer people are able to do that now, which is very unnerving. And the inquisitive mind that I used to describe one side of you earlier on is for me missing in that's a very platent phrase now, but it is missing in society.

People who pause and say, Okay, what's the information I have in my hands? What am I going to do with that? How am I going to challenge that? What are the questions I could ask myself about it?

Just go one, two steps further instead of just accepting it as the utter truth. and I loved what you were just saying around this is I am approaching this topic from a conservative or liberal perspective or whatnot, transparently calling it out to say this is one site. You may represent a different one or you may want to get, you know, additional views. I think that really matters in any part of life to call that out.

Right. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, and just to pause for a second and think, wait, that doesn't sound right. Even if it's from a trusted source, say, well, that doesn't square with what I heard over there.

And or just say, I've got to keep an eye on this to see if anybody else is reporting it like this. So you just have to pay attention. Yes. Lost.

I have to admit, I've had many guests on the show who were about to publish a book, who have published a book, usually in the leadership space. and what we often do is we touch on the book, but we don't really go into detail. for various reasons. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into too much right now.

But when you gave me some insights into your book, Lost. I had goosebumps. I got really excited. And given that I'm all about women and leadership, I'm like, how did I not get into this before?

so therefore we've got to talk about the book. And you mentioned earlier on that you started to write it while you were still at National Geographic. and I'd loved for you to share how this idea came about, realising it wasn't just your idea. And Give us an overview of what or better said who the story is about, and then we dive into the different adventures and and pieces that are to be unpacked.

Okay, that sounds great. So loss came out of reporting I did for National Geographic, where I was asked to go on this expedition to this island called Nikumaroro, the first person to circumnavigate the globe at , which uninhabited island in the Pacific, where some people think Amelia Earhart landed. during her around the world flight in 1937, which is when she disappeared. and at the time I was just writing news stories based on this expedition and the work that the people were doing on the island.

And I didn't know that much about Amelia Earhart beyond the basics that we learn in the US, at least, that she was a female aviator, she broke a lot of records, she spoke up for women and she disappeared. And that was basically what I what I knew. and as I was reporting, you know, I was learning about her, I was learning about that there were these other theories about what happened to her that I didn't know about. And it was a little bit frustrating because I was writing these news stories, but there were so many other things that I could have included in the stories, but then they would have been books basically.

So I went on Two expeditions to this uninhabited island. and during the second one, an agent reached out to me and said, you know, I really like your stories. And have you thought about turning it into a book? And I was thinking, Yeah, but we didn't find her.

So why do we need a book? Or and how would I tell it? Because there were, you know, there's Amelia Earhart's story, there's the story. Of this theory about that she ended up a castaway.

There's the story of the other theories. It just seemed like so much. I didn't know how to tie it all together. so I just thought for several months about well, how how could I make sense of this in a way that's not confusing to everyone, including myself?

But I was very attracted to the idea of being able just to follow my nose on a lot of These theories, not that I was trying to prove any of them, but just to figure out the cultural and historical context that they came out of and the people that were pushing them. So I finally figured out that I could braid the story of her story, Earhart's story, with the story of the three main theories. one is that she ran out of gas and ended up crashed into the ocean. The other is that she got lost and landed on this island and died a castaway.

And the third is she somehow ended up in Japanese territory. They controlled a lot of Micronesia in the 20s and 30s and died in their custody or ended up planning Pearl Harbor. I mean, there were lots of crazy permutations on that theory. So that's how the book came to be.

In a very quick nutshell. But yeah, Earhart is a fascinating character. I'm not she's definitely a big icon in the US, and I think not as well known around the world. Well, there were certain US movies that mentioned her or, you know, highlighted her, but to me at least in Europe.

Heard of her, absolutely, but never in so much detail. and I can totally relate now to what you were saying. It could go down the rabbit hole yourself with regards to what am I telling about her? There's so much to share.

Let's focus on those three different theories. And without spoiling the book, I mean you said already we haven't found her, But kind of what's your hunch on what happened to her? What do you personally believe? Well, I I don't know.

I don't pretend to know what happened, but I do know that the easiest explanation, the Occam's razor explanation, is that she got lost and ran out of gas and just crashed into the ocean. That's the easiest one requires the least amount of explanation or sort of leaps of faith or suspension of belief. it's not the most exciting theory and perhaps the hardest one to prove just because the Pacific Ocean is very big. It's hard to search the bottom of it.

but that's the most likely I'm very fond of the castaway on the island theory just because there's so many cool aspects to it. I mean this is She landed on this island supposedly in 1937. there's giant crabs on the island where that might have disturbed her bones if she died there. They found Castaways campsite on the island.

So a place where somebody lit a fire, put bottles of water in the fire to, I think, boil out any bacteria. There are all this these. artefacts they found from the 1930s, but nothing connected to Amelia Earhart. So yeah, it's just it's very interesting.

I mean, I just I'm also just very interested in why people are still almost a hundred years later, almost 90 years later, I guess, still pursuing this. Why is it? I think for there's several reasons. One, I think when she disappeared, she was really famous.

She was, you know, it was the beginning of really big media. Radio was big, the newsreels were big. And she was all over everything. She was married to a publicist, and he made sure that she was in the public eye as much as possible.

He wanted Her to be equated with female aviation. And he was pretty successful at making that happen. So I think that's part of it. I think it's also just very dramatic that she had almost finished this round-the-world flight when she would have been the first woman to do that.

And also the first person, along with her navigator that everybody forgets about, Fred Noonan, the first person to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, so at its fattest point. and she disappeared just a few stops away from being successful. And no sign of her has ever been found. And that, you know, that's a story without an ending.

It's not very satisfying. And I think people want to have a reason for why she disappeared. It can't just be that several small things went wrong that cascaded into something big and they crashed. It has to be, well, there has to be a bad guy.

So maybe it's the Japanese military or, you know, giant crabs or something that is responsible for her death rather than just something accidental. I think if she had crashed, you know, landing in a on a runway in the US and everybody had seen it and there were pictures of it and that's how she died, I don't think it would have resonated as much because We would have had the evidence in front of our eyes. What stayed with me is that for me, she has become famous for all the reasons you've mentioned, right?

This aviator, this woman who is adventurous herself and doing things no one else had done before. But then after the first call, you and I had, I was like, there was so much more to Amelia Earhart. That's yeah, incredible. And without ruining the book, Let's share a few of those insights about her with the audience.

Now want the audience definitely to get the book and to have a proper read-through as well. but what was she like? How was she different in particular for a woman in the 30s and not in her thirties, I mean in the 1930s? Yeah.

Well, I mean, she was just she was very brave and she definitely had a taste for I don't know, speed and adventure. I mean, ever since she was small, she made her own roller coaster at some point and said it felt like flying. And of course she crashed and got hurt. But she was very interesting because I think from a young age, she did not want to have a traditional life.

You know, most women were heading to marriage and childbearing and taking care of the home. She never wanted that. And part of that is because her father was an alcoholic and they moved from place to place as he lost and then got new jobs. And she saw her mom be very that was very stressful for her mother, but her mother couldn't really do anything because she did not have any way to bring in money herself.

So I think she always wanted that financial. independence and she always seemed to believe that women were full as fully capable as men were. She never seemed to internalise any of the gender divide that was true then. She just wanted to do all these things.

And her parents, to their credit, were very supportive of it. They got footballs for their two daughters They bought them a BB gun and apparently the girls shot all the rats in the local barn. And you know, they just they let them do all these very unladylike things. Her mom made bloomers for her, for her and her sister, so that they could play physically without being constricted by dresses.

So it was you she had a sort of a different childhood than a lot of young girls would have, and she grew up Trying to figure out what her life would look like if it wasn't going to look traditional. I mean, she was for a while engaged to a young man who sounded very nice and curious and interested in the world, but he wanted a traditional family life and she didn't want it, but she really didn't know what to do otherwise. She took some pre-med classes at Columbia, but then had to leave because they didn't have enough money for it.

She tried it to get in some take some engineering classes. She worked as all sorts of different things, a truck driver, an English teacher. and she finally ended up working in a settlement house, which is like a social services house that was serving immigrants in Boston. And she really liked that.

I mean she's very energetic. So she could You know, set up the basketball league for the girls and drive some of the kids to their doctor's appointments and just be going, going, going all the time. But it was interesting that, and this is something I I just found very very valuable to remember is she didn't just spring forth as this liberated female aviator who just did what she wanted. It took her a while to get to the point where.

Because we all have things like that. Yes. And yet she kept going. And yeah, from what I understood, very much with the help that you highlighted earlier on from her husband.

who put her really on the scene. And turned her into this, let's call her icon. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And me, she had learned how to fly when she was living in Los Angeles, but then her parents got divorced. They moved. So she had to give up her plane and wasn't really flying so much when they were living in Boston.

But in 1927, Charles Lindbergh had flown across the Atlantic solo for the first time. And there was this huge race to have a woman fly across the ocean, but mostly it wasn't women pilots, it was women who would be passengers. And there was this wealthy woman who was married to her husband was British and had been the aviation secretary. I can't remember what the title was, but she was determined that Well, first she wanted to be the one to fly across the ocean, but then her family said, no, no, no, you're not gonna do that.

It's too risky. So she wanted to find a proper American girl to be the passenger. And she had no idea how to go about doing it. Her family lawyer had no idea about how to go about doing it, but somehow they came across George Putnam, who was a publisher and he had published.

Lindbergh's memoir, which came out about a month after he'd made that flight. So it was definitely a quickie job. And he, you know, used his contacts to find Amelia because she was known to be a pilot. She, you know, obviously had good moral character since she was working in the settlement house.

And she had been to finishing school briefly. So she had good manners. So she was perfect as far as they were concerned. And she ended up Being a passenger on this flight on this plane called the Friendship that flew, I think it was 1928, successfully flew across to Wales, although they weren't really sure where they had landed.

And when they finally made it to London, everybody paid attention to her and nobody paid attention to the pilots. I mean, she had just sat as a passenger the whole time, but everybody wanted to hear from the woman. been so brave to do it. And she was very embarrassed by that because she knew she hadn't really done anything.

But from then on, she started building up her career. I mean she also wrote this very quickie memoir and went on a lecture tour and started appearing in ads and became the aviation correspondent for Cosmopolitan magazine. You know, the whole sort of publicity machine was put into gear. It's fascinating coming back to her parents' story that her parents got divorced, which wasn't necessarily a thing to do in those years.

And Earhart had a prenup that said she could get divorced if she feels truly unhappy and unfulfilled in her marriage, which was of real new thing as well that women wouldn't necessarily ha mass of generalisation even think about. Yeah, I mean hers wasn't really it wasn't a legal document. It was a letter that she wrote to George Putnam and gave to him the morning of their wedding, which was very small in there in his mother's living room. And it was basically saying, let's give it a year.

We'll see how we feel. And if we feel like it's not gonna work, we'll just go our separate ways. No hard feelings. She was so nervous about getting married.

She thought that. you know, not to be punny, but that sh her wings would be clipped, that she would all of a sudden end up at home without even knowing how it happened. But Putnam, to his credit, was not interested in her being a traditional wife at all. I mean, he ended he was the one who supported her career rather than the other way around.

I mean, he was a pretty pushy, difficult person, but he was all in in terms of making sure she could do what she wanted to do. So it's just another example of her having a different approach. And what I find fascinating personally is that this isn't about being rebellious. You you highlighted it.

She was really nervous about getting married. There was something inside of her, literally like an inner compass that kind of said, What feels right for me, what doesn't. And like real constant inattention. This is how girls, women should be.

This is what's going on for me. And that I find incredibly fascinating. That awareness, that tension that I'm gonna do it differently anyway. still the turmoil though, of all of that.

And I'm gonna say it again, it's not about being a rebellion, rebel in this moment, just doing things differently for the sake of it. It was it feels really real to me. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I think it was very much about her being true to herself.

And she wasn't, yeah, she wasn't a rebel for the sake of being a rebel. She wasn't sh she didn't start at a point of I'm gonna advocate for women's rights and then this is what I'm gonna do to show that women can do everything. It was more like I want to do what I want to do. And that sort of indirectly leads me to advocating for women's rights because I notice that society doesn't really want me to do these things.

You know, she was just much more. I mean, she would often say, people would ask her, Why are you doing this risky thing? And she would just sort of brush them off and say, for the fun of it, like I I don't need to justify this to you. So yes.

And that is something that's still so alive. research has shown that women still over-explain themselves more than men, for example, apologise for what they say, how they say it. being very self-conscious. And the simplicity of what you just shared, or me has said, you know, just for the fun of it, and I don't have to explain myself is powerful.

Yeah. It's worth remembering now. I mean, I think that's another reason that we remember her so much is that there are things that she did that are still difficult for women to do now. And that's one of them, you know.

Yes, one hundred percent. So I wonder now from your deep research, diving into her life, what's the legacy that Amelia Earhart left? Well, I mean, the legacy superficially, it's a lot of little girls who still dress up as her for Halloween. You know, it's this idea that you can be anything.

but I also think her legacy is more complicated because she wasn't just an aviation figure. She was also a celebrity figure. You know, she she was In the public eye, her image was crafted. you know, now we would call her an influencer.

And yet what she did was very grounded in an actual profession, a skill, a brave activity. so yeah, I mean I think that it resonates that she's both she's got this message, but she also is taking these physical risks to spread it. I don't know, I think it's just her story is it just doesn't end. Is there anything that people get wrong about her that you identify to be different throughout your research?

Well, I think part of it is thinking that she was always heroic and brave. You know, that she did things just for the right reason. I think a lot of the times sh she had to do these races or do these, you know, fly across the Atlantic or fly from Hawaii to California. in order to justify going on these research tours, in order to make enough money, to make a living, and also be able to keep flying.

Like there's sort of a there's a backstory to it all where it's a little bit messier than her just deciding, I'm gonna be brave today and fly across the ocean. You know, it was it was trying to make a life out of this thing that she really loved doing. And to make a life you had to have an image and you had to go out into the public and do all these things. It wasn't just a a simple, I'm going to be an icon today.

Now I'm gonna throw out the four theory. She landed somewhere safely, created a completely new persona, stepped out of the limelight, and lived happily ever after. There's a novel about that that's really good. is that?

Yeah, well, it's not directly Amelia Earhart, but it's inspired by her, The Great Circle. I recommend it. Yeah. But yeah, that I think that I mean that would be amazing if that's what happened.

I wonder where she would have been. I think it's yeah, that would have been amazing. There is an idea that she ended up in New Jersey and pretended to be this woman named Irene Bolum. But the woman in question said, I am not Amelia Earhart and stop bothering me.

So and she wasn't. Poor woman. Goodness poor. it's terrible.

What what's the lesson from her life that has stayed with you the longest, with you personally? I think it's this whole idea of not having to explain myself. Cause I tend to overexplain. I do, and or I or even not even to other people, but just to myself.

I have to justify why I'm doing this. why justify why I'm writing a book? Justify why equip my job instead of just saying. you know what it just feels like the right thing to do.

And that's all I'm that's all I need to say. So just this idea of I'm just doing it for the fun of it or because I want to. yeah, that's the one that's really stuck with me. I wonder if Amelia Earhart would be alive today.

So she would live now in the times we live in. What would she be doing? Would she be famous? Yeah, I've thought about that.

she was so into everything new, like new technology. So I can see her being fascinated by AI and space travel and all those things, but I don't see her being an astronaut, for instance, because they are so they have to be so disciplined and such a team. And I think she was more individualistic than that. yeah, it's hard to know.

I mean maybe she would have been a different kind of explorer. she would have pushed boundaries, I think she would not have been content just to stay at home. I think she would have been a a leader. She was when she was at the settlement house, she was already moving up in that world and had become I think she'd been elected to some national organisation.

So I think she was on her way to be a leader wherever she ended up. She was she founded or co-founded an aviation organisation for women called the 99s that still exists, is still very strong. So she would have been people would have known about her in some way. Yeah.

man, we need more of her, that's for sure. Yeah. Now now I've mentioned the word adventurer a few times here today. and y you you have some similarities probably to the Amelia Earhart's story, you know, with regards to flying around a globe and doing these kind of things.

But I'm trying to imagine you traveling to this very remote island and I still don't know how to pronounce Nikumaroro. Yeah. Yes, here we go. I leave that with you.

I mean I'm not sure and probably like it's off for me too. So and you are there, you know dogs looking or sniffing for DNA and trying to find any artefacts that might, you know, give some evidence of what happened to her. I mean, how can I picture these expeditions? How can I imagine your role?

What was it personally like for you to do that? yeah. Well, you can imagine me looking a little bit silly in all my my summer garb and my big hat because it was very hot. But Yeah, it was it was fascinating because I was basically in, you know, like I was talking about observing.

a lot was going on where I wasn't just interviewing people all the time, but we would we were staying on what was basically a cruise ship and that's where we slept and ate and everything. And then we would take a smaller boat onto the island and walk through. some jungle out to the lagoon and take another boat to the other end of the lagoon where there was this campsite that they were excavating. And we would spend all day there.

It was so hot, just so very hot. And watch first we watched the dogs go through and sniff and they all alerted, which indicated that there was some, there were some sort of human remains somewhere in that area. Which was very exciting. And then the archaeologists started digging, and some of the passengers were participating in that as well.

And that was so time consuming because it was a coral atoll. So there's all these coral debris there, which looks very much like bones. So everybody was getting super hot and frustrated because they'd find something, and the osteologist or the anthropologists or the archaeologists would say, Nope, that's coral. So it was day after day of that and me sitting there with my notebook, writing down anytime anybody said anything interesting, sometimes just sitting with people and talking to them about what the experience was like.

I mean, I I actually loved it. It sounds it was a little bit uncomfortable, but I love I like to watch people do what they want to be doing and what they're good at. And so I like to be able to ask archaeologists why they're doing what they're doing, or what why is that not bone why, you know, what how are you telling the difference? You know, I like just being able to do that.

So yeah, it was a tremendous experience. Yeah. Top that is, you know, my challenge for you. How do you yeah.

I'm not sure I can. let's get back to the buffaloes for the Right, exactly. I don't know if you have an answer to that question, but is there anything you want people to leave with once they have read the book? well one thing I write about, especially in the last chapter, is the effect of Earhart's disappearance on her family.

And you know, when she disappeared, she was married, her mother was still alive, her sister was alive, her sister had two children. And so this was a real person with real relations. And I think sometimes in the coverage of the searching, and I not necessarily the searchers, but sometimes the coverage you kind of forget that she was a real person. And I think it's important to remember that.

And the other thing, you know, people will say, all the people who are searching for her are crazy. And I don't think they're crazy. I mean There some of them are a little obsessive, but I think this idea of trying to figure something out and taking yourself out of your regular life to go to this island or to go to Saipan or wherever to go looking. I mean, that is very bold and adventurous and exciting.

And I I I think we should have even if you think that they're pursuing the wrong theory. or don't know. I think we should have respect or empathy for that, that urge to find the answer, that urge to explore, that urge to learn more. I think those are all very human and we see those play out in lots of different ways.

So I don't know, I would urge a little bit more empathy for the people who are searching. Yeah. That's a very, very important point. Yeah.

Do you have any idea how the family, I mean, apart from the huge grief, how they dealt with it, what's kind of how they were left? Yeah, they for a while her mother, I think, really hoped that she had been captured by the Japanese because that's seemed to offer the best hope that she could still be alive. but I think eventually she accepted that she was no longer alive. I think.

Her mother or her sister and certainly her niece thought that she had gone into the ocean. And her niece, who just recently passed away about a year ago, who was in her 90s, was very she just thought that it was a lot of waste of money to search for her. She's she was very much like Earhart and that she supported a lot of causes and she thought, you know, people's lives could be improved with the money that had been used to search for her. So she was a little bit impatient with that idea.

But they're all I think were gracious to the people who kept coming to ask them questions, including me. So they expressed amazing patience when this was completely thrust on them, the whole experience from when Amelia became famous. To when she disappeared to these long searches afterwards, and they didn't choose any of this. That sounds like a challenging, really challenging situation full of tensions.

No. Yes, it could it could be. I think at this point it it's not so much, but I think it was very challenging. Yeah.

Well, I'm not gonna ask you more questions about the book because I really want people to read it and to find out more about it. but let people know where they can find this beautiful book that people cannot see right now because of my virtual background. Where can they find it? there we go.

There it is. There we go. There it is. Well, on my website there are links to it.

So my website is rachelhardiganauthor.com, but it's also available on Amazon and that's probably the main one for you all in the UK. But yeah, Amazon, bookshop, Bronze and Noble, all those. Any other social media account or contact details you want to share with people so they can get in touch with you?

Or is it mainly the website? Well, website's probably the best way. I mean, I'm not great on social media. I am on LinkedIn and Instagram and Threads and Blue Sky, but I'm kind of a lurker.

But you can reach out to me there and I will respond. I'm gonna reach out to you at some point to see where your next adventure has taken you and just to check it in. Yeah, that'd be great. I'd appreciate that.

But for now, what I wanna say is thank you for writing this beauty, for inspiring me to you know think about something completely different. I would have never, never delved deeper into Amelia Earhart's world and I'm utterly grateful for it and that you brought this yet another trooper into my life. So thank you for that. for sharing some of those amazing inspirations with our listeners as well.

And I would highly recommend that you have a read about the story Lost that Rachel has written about and really see for yourself what Amelia Earhart was about and most importantly from From my perspective, what does it tell us about how we can, you know, be amazing role models in this world? And it doesn't mean we have to be famous and being in the spotlight all the time. It's about those small acts that make a difference, such as no not over explaining ourselves, giving back, doing something that's unconventional, feeling proud about it, or proud of it, whatever it is for you.

But I think there are a few golden nuggets in here. that can truly yeah inspire us to do something real and perhaps different. Yeah. Well thank you so much for having me.

It's been great to be here. Rachel, absolute joy to speak to you. Thank you so, so much. And yeah, get Rachel's book is my final ask.

And with that I'm gonna say take good care of yourself. Have a wonderful rest of the day and speak to you soon. Bye everybody. Bye, Rachel.

Bye. Thank you.