Keep an open mind....
About the Irene-Amelia website; when I discussed the 'Earhart mystery' matter with Tom Crouch of NASM at the Smithsonian Institute, he was forthright in describing how the Smithsonian offers no support to any of the various disappearance theories, even to the point of his admitting,"We're not permitted to." They do however, 'favor' the simple crashed and sank theory. National Geographic, also based in Washington DC follows suit, as it only conveys what private citizens are offering up about Earhart and never commits to supporting any of it. As for anyone's Bill Prymak referral, thanks but no thanks. He has evidenced himself as one dogmatically awry when it comes to Earhart. Half the stuff he says about Gervais and his Irene claim is outright incorrect. Mr. Prymak founded his illustrious 'Amelia Earhart Society' back in 1989, taking over the past membership of the AE Consortium founded by Ron Reuther years before. (Reuther had gained some notoriety and established a relationship with the National Geographic Society after his nursing of, and involvement with Koko, the famous gorilla who learned sign language back in the 1970s.) Reuther continued to be a member. The curious thing to be realized about Bill Prymak, Ric Gillespie, and Elgen Long... is for decades they have remained steadfast as the three most media dominating people when it comes to how the press annually covers the Earhart mystery. Reporters are always steered towards those guys first by their editors. Interestingly, (and although he has historically refused to commit to believing in anything about Earhart other than she turned up missing in 1937) Prymak gobbled up Reuther's past Marshall Islands theory supporters as his main membership constituency, to include making Colonel Reineck and Major Gervais two of the AES's first honorary members. For years he showered them both with praise and adulation, Gervais especially (Joe Klaas too, a good friend of Prymak's) while always showing respect to Gervais regarding his claim about the enigmatic Irene Criagmile (Bolam) having 'possibly' been the former Amelia Earhart. Incredibly, right after Gervais passed away in 2005 Mr. Prymak started decrying Gervais’ many years of research, to especially include his sudden staunch damning of the by then four decades old 'Irene controversy.' He claimed it was finally proven false when it wasn't. (Even Kevin Richlin, the fellow who appeared on the 2006 National Geo 'Unsolved History' show about AE, refused to outright state the Gervais claim was proved 'untrue.') Prymak and his partner, a Ukrainian physicist named Alex Mandel also started telling people how Gervais and Reineck both admitted they were wrong about Irene before they died, and that simply is not true. In Gervais' last filmed interview shortly before he died he still stressed his certain belief of how one of the three 'same identified' Irene Craigmile (Bolam) women could only have been the former AE. Whether she was or wasn't, it's a matter of record Gervais and Reineck both died still believing and stressing she was. Even Reineck was interviewed just before he passed away in September of 2007, and he still avowed how in spite of all nay-sayers one of the three Irene's had been formerly known as Earhart. His entie theory about it appeared flawed, but he expressed his certainty about the Gervais part time and again.
Otherwise it's a tad curious how Bill Prymak, a very wealthy retired construction engineer who in the 1990s established himself as the media's main go-to guy about the Marshalls theory; and Ric Gillespie, who has been the media's go to guy about his Gardner Island (Nikumororo) theory for more than a quarter century, and Elgen Long, Amelia's Sister Muriel's past good friend who receives the most 'polite' media attention always, has also since the 1970s been advocating his simple crashed and sank theory. Muriel had initially cooperated with Fred Goerner of CBS radio who basically introduced the Marshall Islands theory in 1966, and whose reasearch included the Admiral Nimitz admission how it was quietly 'known and documented in Washington' that 'Earhart and her navigator went down in the Marshall Islands and were picked up by Japan; and the Naval Commander Pillsbury quote from 1962 remarking how the real Earhart loss story would "stagger the imagination." In time Muriel evolved to only support Elgen Long's simple crashed and sank theory by the 1980s. (Muriel died in 1998.) Yes... I find it curious how over the years the three fellows of Long, Gillespie, and Prymak have all but dominated the entire Earhart mystery scene, while saying entirely different things about it, while forever commonly dissing the Gervais-Irene claim at the same time. Nothing has ever been solidly proved or disproved about Earhart's loss, other than the world wide recognized common fact of how she and Noonan and their plane were not seen nor heard from again after July 2, 1937. Plus, contrary to what anyone says or implies, the official record shows their radio messages stopping while they were still safely airborne, with what was likely close to four or five hours of fuel left.
I guess all I'm recommending is for people to still try and keep an open mind about Earhart's 1937 disappearance and aftermath. It's quite possible everyone in the public realm, to include Long, Gillespie, and Prymak... who has ever postulated anything about Earhart's final fate thus far remains way off. To add one more item about why one might find the Gervais claim about the Irene he met in 1965 curious... where even the original Irene's still living Son (born 1934) in the past displayed much ambiguity about his mother's true identity, and in 2006 he did admit he holds no photos of his mother pre-dating 1947, and where the film idea came into play, evidently, after he (Swindell) befriended Author Randall Brink and Joe Gervais in the mid 90s and learned there had never been a serious forensic study done on the Gervais Irene claim, he set out to arrange one. After he realized the person who Gervais met in 1965 appeared no where in the photo history of Irene's person prior to the 1940s, yet two other people did, a new window to the controversy had been opened. In 2000 Reineck reviewed the preliminary study results, and by 2002 he ws so taken by it, it inspired him to complete his book “Amelia Earhart Survived.” He also talked Prymak into combining with him for a five thousand dollar investment into the documentary project, and Prymak soon after started demanding his half of the investment back as he felt himself losing his dominance over the Irene-Amelia topic, that he always struggled so hard to maintain. Prymak, Gillespie, and Irene’s and Amelia’s family & past friend connections have been damning the study ever since the plural Irenes discovery was made in 2002. Yet no one, absolutely no one has ever forensically disproved the Gervais claim about the Irene he met. And one of the three Irenes did look like Amelia and was her exact same height. Again, nor Prymak, nor Gillespie, nor the Smithsonian, nor National Geographic, nor anyone else has ever lifted a serious finger to forensically disprove the old Gervais-Irene claim. They avoid it and tell others to avoid it too. See the Irene-Amelia site for more info. Try to take it more seriously where some might persuade others not to.