Amelia Earhart: What The General Public Never Knew

Newspaper Fraud Tried To Hide The Truth In 1982

Home Page: Amelia Earhart
About Tod Swindell
Drumming Out False Earhart History
The Curious Mrs. Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam
Past Significant Amelia Earhart Disappearance Investigations
About 'Operation Earhart' (1960-1970)
The 1980s and 1990s Words Of Monsignor James Francis Kelley On Amelia Earhart
Comparing Amelia Earhart To Irene O'Crowley Craigmile (Surname 'Bolam' added in 1958)
Wikipedia Deceitfully Misleads the Public About Amelia and Irene
Newspaper Fraud Tried To Hide The Truth In 1982


 
In 1982, Newspaper Fraud Tried To Hide The Truth 
 

This page is a work in progress but it stands to amaze. It features one of the telling discoveries from the forensic research study: NEWSPAPER FRAUD. After Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam's death was recorded in 1982, an attempt to put the rumor of her past identity to rest occurred within a contrived two-week long news article series published by the New Jersey News Tribune. The series looked like an investigative journalism series that had been embarked on to determine if it could have been possible for the woman STILL IN QUESTION at the time, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, to have been the somehow survived 'Amelia Earhart'. The series used photo forgeries to try and make three different people appear as one life long human being. Where the series had the appearance of being real, hindsight shows the forgeries were sloppy--and they became its undoing.   

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THE POST WAR ONLY IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE-BOLAM, 1965

On the page to the left is the 'Irene Bolam' photographed by Joseph A. Gervais in 1965 with her husband, Guy Bolam. She is also shown above here.

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"Irene Bolam, 1970s"
 
The page to the left features this 'Irene Bolam' in its upper left corner. She was not the Irene Bolam who Joseph A. Gervais had met and photographed in 1965, but the intention of the news article series was to leave people believing she was. To answer who she was, this Irene Bolam served as the surrogate mother for the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's 1934 born son.

Above is an example of where two individuals identified as the same 'Irene O'Crowley Craigmile Bolam' in the 1982 New Jersey Tribune series were identified as the same person. There were actually three different women attributed to the same Irene identity if the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile, shown below in 1930 next to her husband, Charles Craigmile, is also included.

 

CHARLES AND IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE
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1930 NEWSPRINT PHOTO

Below, this 1982 newspaper series page (larger inserts further down) features three different women purposefully identified as one in the same person, even though they were different human beings. Only one of them, the post-war Irene, matched Amelia Earhart.  

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In the panel below find the three different Twentieth Century women featured on the above page as one in the same person:

CHARLES AND IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE
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1930 NEWSPRINT PHOTO

Charles James Craigmile and his wife, the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile in 1930. After Charles died in 1931, Irene remarried and gave birth to a son in 1934. To date, no one knows what became of the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Her son ended up being raised by a surrogate mother (right).
 

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Above and below, this was the surrogate mother of the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's 1934 born son. She also went by the name of Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Above is the way she looked in the early 1940s and below is the way she looked in the 1970s, according to the original Irene's son, who positively identified her within the 'Amelia to Irene' comparison analysis.

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This is the post-World War Two only, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile in 1965, who proved to be a complete match to Amelia Earhart physically and character trait wise. She may not look much like Amelia here, yet once again, check the panel below. 

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Amelia Earhart, 1937

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Post-War only Irene & Amelia digitally combined

The Fraudulent 1982 New Jersey News Tribune Series...
 
The forensic research and comparison study discovered that in October of 1982, a few months after Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam's death was recorded amid renewed suspicion that once again questioned her true past, the New Jersey News Tribune lured its readers back into it with an intention to shut the door on it for good.

For two straight weeks installments ran everyday in the paper causing its viewers to wonder whether or not Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam had previously been known as 'Amelie Earhart.' To squelch the persisting rumormill that said she did use to be known as Amelia Earhart, the series relied on public naivety by way of combining the photo likenesses of three different people within its effort to present them all, albeit falsely, as one life-long individual human being.

There is little doubt 'federal news media lobbyists' worked with the paper's publisher, John Burk, a good friend of the post-war only Irene's (FKA 'Earhart') to concoct the deceptive ploy. 

By comparing the various newspaper pages and their accompanying photos it is easy to see how the different Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam's were intentionally inserted into the series. The effort took place in order to convince the paper's readers that the different Irenes were one in the same person. Below are clear images of the different, Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam's shown in younger and older forms, then digitally combined:

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Above is the Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam who the original Irene Craigmile's son identified in both 'younger' and 'older' forms. When combined on the far right the same person is evidenced.
 
Below is the former Amelia Earhart, AKA the post-World War Two only Irene O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam, the way she appeared in 1946, in one of the earliest known of, 'post-disappearance after she returned' photos, next to the one of her from 1965. The images were again digitally combined to evidence the same person in younger and older forms. 

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THE POST WAR ONLY IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE-BOLAM, 1965

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AMELIA EARHART, 1937

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LEFT-RIGHT PHOTOS COMBINED

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THE POST-WAR ONLY IRENE O'CROWLEY CRAIGMILE-BOLAM, 1965

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Above is the former Amelia Earhart in 1946, newly re-identified as Irene O'Crowley Craigmile. Some cosmetic adjustments were made to her visage to leave her less recognizable, not to mention the famous 'gap' between her two front teeth is gone (easy to fix) yet below, one can see through to her former self.

 

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Amelia Earhart...

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...transitions into...

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...her later Irene O'Crowley Craigmile self marking
the post-war reemergence of, "the pilot in pearls."

 

After two weeks of teasing its readers, on the final day of the series the paper featured the full page spread below with the caption "Irene's Life Not So Mysterious." The series drew its conclusion here, albeit in a highly fraudulent way that there was never anything awry about the life of the recently deceased, Irene Craimile Bolam. However a close examination of this page reveals the images of three different women within an illicit attempt to depict them as having been one in the same human being. 

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So yes, above is the falsified life-long photo history of 'Irene Madeline O'Crowley Craigmile-Bolam' AKA Irene Craigmile' AKA 'Irene Bolam' carefully and purposefully assembled before it was to be displayed within the fraudulent series. The SOLE intention of this page was to fool the curious into accepting that Irene Craigmile Bolam was one life long person who was never known as Amelia Earhart. 
 
After two weeks the series attempted to settle the ongoing debate over Irene's true identity by relying on photo-forgeries to convey there was nothing unusual about her. Importantly, it included a few barely legible photos of the original Irene Craigmile who appeared nowhere after the 1930s. The 1997-2017 study was the first to discover and reveal this extensive fabrication. Below shows how the study unraveled its fraudulent foundation.

 

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Below is the other half of the top panel: 

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The above photo was identified in the paper as, 'Irene and Guy Bolam in Japan, 1963.'

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According the part of the full page newspaper spread of 'Irene photos' on the left, the image above depicted 'Irene Craigmile Bolam' the way she looked in 1923. Except it's a dead forgery give-away. When Tod Swindell interviewed Irene's son, Larry Heller, Mr. Heller commented that he had "never seen it before" and he "had no idea where it came from." Otherwise, he did identify the picture of his mother below, as he recognized her, to have been taken "in the early 1940s":  

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Below is the 10/29/82 'Memorial Dinner' program cover featuring a "1970s" dated 'Irene Bolam' photo. The photo features the older version of the 'early 1940s' mother Larry Heller identified. Larry Heller mentioned he "supplied" the photo of his mother that appeared on the cover. Below, one can see how it perfectly superimposes with the 1923 photo, although accepting the 1923 photo as a valid edifice proved difficult where it was hard to envision how over the course of five decades the 1923 Irene would have hardly aged at all, or how she was able to strike the exact same pose fifty years apart. Did she discover a fountain of youth? A cure for osteoporosis? Of course not. It grew to be obvious that the memorial dinner program photograph was used as a template to construct the 1923 photo forgery:

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Within the series photos, notice how washed-out the "1940s" dated version of Irene's image [shown in a clear version directly below] appears to be. It is important to re-emphasize here within the context of the series, the Joseph A. Gervais 1965 photographed 'Irene Craigmile Bolam,' FKA 'Amelia Earhart' was identified nowhere as 'Irene' prior to the mid-1940s. 

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In the top panel's "Irene through the years" labeled section, note how the photos are so accurately identified, to include the 1934 description: "Larry and mother at the Pines of southern New Jersey." 

The above-left "1927-1931" dated photo displays the original Irene Craigmile with her husband, Charles Craigmile (who died in 1931) and her Father, Richard Joseph O'Crowley. Notice the quality is illegible when it comes to viewing the original Irene's true image. A few other photos in the series also appear to display the image of the original Irene; all of inferior quality.   

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As a result of the discovery of forgeries used by the Tribune, the veracity of the series itself was absolutely debunked, to especially include its 'no controversy' conclusion about 'Irene Craigmile Bolam.'

Before the two week series was published, for the previous twelve years the enigmatic, Irene Craigmile Bolam left many people wondering if she used to be known as, 'Amelia Earhart.' Even her purported son, Larry Heller, questioned her true identity after she died, just as Time magazine did years earlier when she was still living.
 
The forensic analysis revealed misinformation and photo forgeries used within the series to contrive a campaign displaying a false linear progression of Irene Craigmile Bolam's full life story within its effort to convince the curious... that there was never anything unusual about her. It did so because many people at the time her death was recorded still believed she was previously known as 'Amelia Earhart.'
 
The paper's publisher, John W. Burk, who had been a close friend of Irene Craigmile Bolam's in her later-life years, and whose newspaper hosted her high-end Memorial Dinner event the final day the series ran, appeared to be part of the ongoing effort to cover the reality of his late friend's past as 'Amelia Earhart.'
 
Today the 1982 series is revealing of how the press itself was engaged to help throw off the curious. This becomes clear when one carefully studies the compared news photo visuals and other data that abetted the New Jersey News Tribune's fraudulent effort. Its October of 1982 "Irene Craigmile Bolam" series was specifically used to coerce the public into believing the three different human beings displayed directly below were one in the same person:    

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Irene Craigmile 1930

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Irene Craigmile early 1940s

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The post-war only 'Irene Craigmile' in 1946

Below: Note the profile and straight on 'mug-shot' photo forgeries used in the series that accompanied the other misleading information it employed. The poor quality of the torso in the profile forgery is particularly interesting. 'Mug shots' are akin to police arrest photos for quick ID referencing. It makes sense they were incorporated into the series for that purpose. All of the different photos below were used to make people believe three different women had been one in the same person. The 1923 'profile' mug shot was built from a photo of the original Irene O'Crowley Craigmile's aunt, who had been a Zonta friend of Amelia's. Her name was Irene Rutherford O'Crowley and she was considered a fairly prominent attorney in New York and New Jersey from the 1920s into the late 1950s. Larry Heller, the original Irene's son, verified his attorney aunt and Amelia were known acquaintances. It is likely attorney Irene was instrumental in helping Amelia to assume her niece's left over name and identity.  

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"1923" straight-on

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"1923" profile

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Below: A clip referencing the original Irene's 1934 born son, Larry Heller from one of many articles that appeared in the series. Throughout the series, apparently it didn't seem odd to anyone that twelve years after the national hubbub over Larry Heller's so-called 'mother' died down, many people, to include Larry Heller himself and his wife Joan, were still questioning her true identity. The first paragraph of the article reads: "Although Irene Bolam's son and daughter in law have repeatedly and consistently denied that Mrs. Bolam was Amelia Earhart, her daughter in law now says they are no longer sure." The text insert below Larry Heller's picture further references Robert Myers, who in 1985 with Barabra Wiley, wrote the book Stand By To Die that advocated Mrs. Bolam's past 'Amelia' identity to be true. Meyers, who briefly knew Amelia Earhart in the 1930s, also met and came to know Irene Bolam [the Gervais-Irene] in the 1970s, and based on what he learned from her and about her, just as Joe Gervais already had, he attested with 100% certainty that she was previously known as, 'Amelia Earhart.'

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Photo of Larry Heller that appeared with the article.

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The Joe Klaas-Joe Gervais book:
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McGraw-Hill's best-seller in 1970 offered Amelia survived and changed her name to Irene.

Gervais-Irene and her English husband, Guy Bolam
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As seen in the 1970 book, 'Amelia Earhart Lives' by Joe Klaas

Closer: The Gervais-Irene
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Photo taken by Joe Gervais August 8, 1965, the day he met her among other well known pilots.

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Amelia Earhart, 1933

Gervais-Irene & her former self superimposed
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Gervais-Irene, 1965 with Amelia from above, 1933

The original Irene, middle, 1930
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Shown between her husband, Charles Craigmile and her father, R.J. O'Crowley. Charles died in 1931.

The Non Gervais-Irene (Irene Jr.)
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This photo was first published in 1982

The Gervais-Irene, FKA 'Amelia'
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1964

Although many people assumed the suggestion of Amelia changing her name to Irene was disproved at some point in time, it never was. In fact, in 2015 Smithsonian Institution Magazine published a statement conveying that the controversy over Amelia's name change to Irene "still lives on."
 

ABOVE PHOTO: THE NON GERVAIS-IRENE; BELOW PHOTO: THE GERVAIS-IRENE
 
Displayed here below, only the Gervais-Irene, who appeared nowhere identified as 'Irene' prior to the 1940s, forensically matched Amelia Earhart physically and character trait wise. An entirely different person than the Irene Bolam shown above, this Irene Bolam DID used to be known as Amelia:

As seen in Protecting Earhart's forensic study...
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...Amelia as Irene, far left, as Amelia, far right, the two superimposed, center

Gervais-Irene Craigmile became Irene Bolam in 1958
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LPGA Promoter, Peter Busatti with his friend, the Gervais-Irene Bolam, FKA 'Earhart' in the 1970s

"Peter Busatti said he accompanied Mrs. Bolam to the Wings Club in New York City on one occasion. He said a full length portrait of Amelia Earhart hangs in the room dedicated in her honor. ""It was a dead ringer for Irene,"" he said. ""I told her she looked like Amelia Earhart and she said, ""No, I don't look like her."" ""Sometimes I thought she was, sometimes I thought she wasn't. Once when I asked her directly she replied, ""When I die you'll find out,"" Busatti said. At a Wings Club event in Washington, Busatti mentioned all the admirals and generals seemed to know her." Excerpts from a 1982 Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune article.
 
"...all the admirals and generals seemed to know her."

   

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