THE Amelia Earhart Saipan Memorial Monument Incorporated group held an event at Joeten-Kiyu Public Library to celebrate the 128th birthday of the famed aviatrix on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
Their president, Marie Soledad Castro, gave a presentation expressing her belief that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were captured in the Marshall Islands and later imprisoned on Saipan during the Japanese administration of the Marianas.
The group also renewed its call for a monument to be erected on Saipan in Earhart’s honor.
According to Castro, Earhart “changed the role of women worldwide” by inspiring women to pursue new possibilities.
The Amelia Earhart Saipan Memorial Monument supporters hope to build a memorial ideally located at the Saipan international airport, pending support from the Commonwealth Ports Authority.
Castro said that erecting a monument “is not to end the speculation about her fate,” but rather to “establish a place in the Pacific for people to visit.”
“The entire aviation community and much of the world already know something about Amelia Earhart and her flight that ended in the Pacific,” Castro said. “People throughout the world have literally been waiting for decades for a recognizable reason to visit the islands where she was last seen.”
She added that a monument on Saipan would serve as a “magnet” attracting “history buffs and people in the aviation field.”
Castro said the most compelling evidence that Earhart was on Saipan comes from numerous eyewitness accounts from 1937, describing a thin white American woman with a man’s haircut and clothing being escorted through the streets of Garapan.
In her presentation, Castro said a “white lady dressed like a man” would have appeared “much like an apparition to locals in those days,” making an “indelible and unforgettable” impression.
She recounted an interview she conducted with eyewitness Matilde Arriola, who said that Earhart was housed at the Kobayashi Royokan hotel.
Quoting Arriola, Castro said:
“In Japanese time none of the houses had running water, including the hotels, so Amelia Earhart used the toilet outside and stopped at my house to talk to someone. My mother was from Guam and spoke English. Amelia spoke to her, but nobody knew what their conversation was about.”
Arriola also recalled that Earhart helped her sister, Consolacion Arriola, with schoolwork and spent time with the girls.
Castro also cited the work of Fred Goerner, author of “The Search for Amelia Earhart.” In the 1960s, Goerner interviewed Saipan residents about the mystery. In a book co-written by Mike Campbell and Castro, which Variety reviewed during the birthday event, eyewitness Antonio Cepeda recalled seeing an American woman housed on the second floor of the Kobayashi Royokan in 1937.
Cepeda said the woman was wearing “unusual clothes,” including a “long raincoat belted in the center.” He described her as “average height,” with a “thin build,” and hair that was “cut short like a man’s” and “reddish-brown.”
One island resident, John Demapan, voiced support for a monument, saying he too believes Earhart was on Saipan.
“There’s a lot of eyewitness accounts from different countries saying Amelia stopped here and stopped there,” he said. “But to actually hear it in the video [presentation] earlier and from some of the family members, I think I’m truly convinced that Amelia left some kind of footprint here on the island.”
“There’s always going to be people who say she landed here or landed there,” he added. “But I feel — through my gut, through listening and watching previous clips—that she was here.”
Demapan said he would support the creation of a physical monument but acknowledged that the local economy could affect whether such a project is feasible.
“If we’re not able to fully fund the monument,” he said, “then I would say find ways to keep Amelia Earhart’s memory or existence alive. The affordable thing to do is to keep her memory alive in the community.”
The Amelia Earhart Saipan Memorial Monument Inc. group members were at Joeten-Kiyu Public Library to celebrate the 128th birthday of the famed aviatrix on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
Marie Castro delivers her remarks during the 128th birthday celebration of Amelia Earhart at Joeten-Kiyu Public Library on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
