TREKCORE > VOY > EPISODES > THE 37'S > Synopsis

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When a pickup truck from the 1930's inexplicably shows up in space, it's beamed aboard Voyager for closer inspection. Even more peculiar, the truck's radio is picking up an SOS distress call — but from where? Kim traces the signal to a nearby star system and Janeway orders the crew to lay in a course to the signaling planet. An unusual amount of interference in the upper atmosphere prevents them from beaming down, so Janeway tells Paris to land the ship on the planet's surface.

The Away Team follows the SOS to the cockpit of an airplane that was built during the same era as the truck. Beyond the plane, the crew finds a chamber containing eight humans in cryo-stasis units. All are dressed in 1930's attire, and one unit holds famed aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared with her navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937. The eight humans are revived from suspended animation.

Once awake, the humans demand to know where they are and how they got there. After Janeway explains that they were probably abducted by aliens 400 years earlier, a suspicious Noonan and some of the others take the crew hostage. Hoping to convince them of the truth, Janeway gets Earhart to venture outside the chamber to see Voyager, but as soon as they do, they come under fire by two snipers on a hill.

Janeway quells the attack and learns the snipers are two humans who have mistaken the crew for the Briori: an alien race that kidnapped more than 300 people from Earth in 1937 and brought them to the planet as slaves. After a successful slave revolt chased the Briori off, the humans created a colony. However, they believed that the eight "37's" in Earhart's group were dead, and they left them in their cryo-stasis units for centuries.

The colonists offer the 37's and Voyager's crew the opportunity to remain on the Earth-like planet, and Janeway allows each member of her flock to choose for his or herself. Although Neelix and Chakotay are sure they want to go with Janeway, she can't be so sure about the other crewmembers, who debate the merits of settling on the planet. Ultimately, Amelia Earhart and the other 37's decide to stay with their "descendants," but to Janeway's relief, the entire Voyager crew opts to leave with her.