But when Ms Bajc, whose partner Philip Wood disappeared on board MH370, wrote back asking for more information about Darlene Tipton’s proposal, she received an unusual reply.

Mrs Tipton claimed her husband had had visions that the 239 passengers of the ill-fated plane were alive, but before they revealed their whereabouts and went ahead with a fundraiser for the passengers' families, Ms Bajc had to agree to waive any future compensation claims.

Treating the email with incredulity, Ms Bajc wrote to Fox Cable Network, where Mrs Tipton worked as vice-president of the standards and practices department.

Mrs Tipton was subsequently fired from her role and, after 24 years with the company, escorted off the premises on April 9, with her computer seized. She was told she had breached the company’s policy by sending personal emails from her work account.

News stories on her sacking initially evoked sympathy from online readers, questioning why Fox would fire someone for seeking to set up a charity for those affected by the missing plane.

"Why am I not a BIT surprised that fox would fire someone who was trying to do something good?" wrote one reader on the Huffington Post.

Another commented: "I think Fox News has totally lost the concept of journalistic integrity; if she was trying to help what's the problem?"

But now more details have emerged about the bizarre circumstances surrounding Mrs Tipton's proposal.

In a video uploaded to YouTube, and since removed, her husband Ken, claims to have had a vision about the plane while in hospital. The caption accompanying the video says: “I truly believe that I know what happened, who did what, what went wrong, and what country is holding the lives of all on board #370 in limbo.”

In the video, Mr Tipton speaks to the camera from a hospital bed where he was recovering from a spinal injury he sustained only a week before the couple contacted Ms Bajc.

“I’m seeing the hallucinations about the people on the plane. I’ve been in contact with this girl called Ree,” he said in the four-minute clip.

“By the grace of God, karma or circumstance, could I be tapped into something that is legitimate, or real? What if I’m seeing something that really exists. If that is the case. OMG I’m having a great time.”

Mrs Tipton stressed that the fundraiser was offered in good faith, independently of her husband's theories, and that his medically-induced hallucinations were just the catalyst for prompting her to get involved. She said she could not understand why her motive was being questioned.

“I’ve lost my job, I can’t collect unemployment. I have no insurance. What is wrong with trying to help people?” said Mrs Tipton, 61, who has worked as a network programmer for television shows Malcolm in the Middle, Melrose Place andGlee.

“I was never going to make money off this. My heart broke at what those people were going through... I just wanted to help.”

Journalist and aviation author Christine Negroni, who's been documenting attempts by lawyers to secure contracts with the families of MH370 passengers, first wrote about the Tiptons' encounter with Ms Bajc on her blog.

She was in close contact with Ms Bajc, and said that the offer of aid from a complete stranger was an “odd request”.

“The thing that took it into the bizarre realm was that the woman making the request was saying, ‘of course you’d have to sign away all rights to any litigation against anyone in the future.’ That was just weird,” said Ms Negroni.

“What makes this woman believe that she’s the appropriate person to be doing this and what does litigation have to do with it? What does signing away your rights to litigation have to do with it?”

Mrs Tipton said she and her husband chose to contact Ms Bajc after seeing several media interviews with her, but said they would have simply contacted other families if Ms Bajc had declined their offer for help.

She said their condition that Ms Bajc waive any future legal claims was based on “ethical” grounds.

“If you’re going to sue, to just get money from entities that really should not bear any responsibility, and also take donations, that’s not ethical, that’s not right,” Mrs Tipton said.

Despite no further communication from Ms Bajc, the couple set up a fundraising page on crowdsourcing website GoFundMe.com.

Originally, Mrs Tipton wrote on the web page that she wanted to raise $22 million (US) in 30 days for Mr Wood’s family.

However, the fine print declared $2 million of that money would be spread between the “GoFundMe.com fees, the credit card fees, the cost and shipping of the rewards, and the legal fees due to Lieberlaw.com”.

GoFundMe shut down the page on Tuesday, telling Mrs Tipton that Philip Wood’s family had not authorised the fundraiser.

Speaking to Fairfax Media from the couple’s Los Angeles home, Mr Tipton, an actor and screenwriter, acknowledged his visions were only hallucinations, but that they were so detailed, he was considering turning the “plausible theory” into a movie.

“What I saw made more sense than anything I’ve seen in the news,” he said.

“I saw the hijacking, I saw the kidnapping, the ransoming of the first class passengers.”

Ms Negroni said that while Mrs Tipton sounded genuine on the phone, she remained sceptical about the couple’s intentions and their belief that the passengers might be alive.

“That sounds like a scam to me or lunacy,” said Ms Negroni.

“I don’t think Sarah was considering against litigating against anybody at this point in time but it would be an odd request from a stranger.”

Ms Bajc has been approached by Fairfax Media for comment.