Does this photo show Amelia Earhart – and prove that she died in Japanese custody?

A newly unearthed picture from the US national archives has given new credence to a popular theory about the disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart.

Some experts say the image shows the pilot, her navigator Fred Noonan and her aeroplane in the Marshall Islands in 1937, when the archipelago was occupied by Japan – proving that she died in Japanese custody, rather than during a crash landing in the Pacific.

“When you pull out, and when you see the analysis that’s been done, I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that’s Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan,” Shawn Henry told NBC News. Henry is the former executive assistant director for the FBI and an NBC News analyst.

Kent Gibson, a forensic analyst who specialises in facial recognition, told the History Channel that it was “very likely” the individuals pictured are Earhart and Noonan, in a programme on the Earhart mystery expected to air this Sunday.

Not everyone is so convinced, however. “There is such an appetite for anything related to Amelia Earhart that even something this ridiculous will get everybody talking about it,” said Ric Gillespie, author of Finding Amelia and the executive director of the The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar).