Story highlights A newly discovered photo appears to show Amelia Earhart after her crash landing, some experts say

But other experts remain unconvinced the photo proves anything

(CNN) A newly unearthed photo showing blurry figures on a dock may shed light on the 80-year-old mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart.

A new History channel documentary quotes experts who say the image shows the famed pilot survived her 1937 crash in the Pacific. But other experts told CNN they aren't convinced and say the photo is just another in a long history of unproven theories about the aviator's disappearance.

"I don't blame people for wanting to know," said Dorothy Cochrane, curator for the Aeronautics Department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. "It is one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century because she was so well known."

A new History Channel special claims this photo is proof Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were in the Marshall Islands after their plane disappeared.

Earhart, the pioneering aviator who became the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic, famously disappeared with her navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937, while attempting to fly to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. Her fate has been a figure of fascination, and professional and amateur investigators have offered many theories over the years on what happened to the daring pilot.

The photograph, recently discovered in the National Archives by former US Treasury Agent Les Kinney, allegedly shows Earhart and Noonan among a group of people on a dock on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Some experts believe the figure highlighted at left is Fred Noonan and the person sitting, facing away from the camera, is Amelia Earhart.