In Search of Amelia Earhart notably Andy Roberts who shared vocals on the album, created an atypical British folk album conceived around the idea of the legends surrounding Amelia Earhart and her supposed demise. Matthews had read a book by Fred Goerner hypothesizing that Earhart and her flying companion Frederick Noonan had crashed around the Japanese held Marshall Island area and been taken prisoner by the Japanese on Saipan, in the Marianas, in 1937. Their plane had supposedly been outfitted with aerial cameras and had a bigger fuel tank than anyone outside of the US government knew. After being grilled by Japanese interrogators Earhart would
Fred Noonan in "The 37s", an episode of "". The character of an aircraft pilot named Fred Noonan is portrayed by actor Eddie Firestone in "The Long Train", a 1961 episode of the television series "The Untouchables". Both a baseball stadium and an aircraft rental agency are named after Fred Noonan. A 1990 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" featured Mark Stitham as Noonan. In addition, Rutger Hauer has portrayed Noonan in the TV movie "" (1994) starring Diane Keaton, and Christopher Eccleston portrayed Noonan in the 2009 biographical movie "Amelia" (2009). It is also possible that the character of Freddy Noonan in the