Fresh clues in mystery of Amelia Earhart point to plane crash near small island: 'Very strong evidence'
Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan vanished while attempting to fly around the world on July 2, 1937, sparking decades of failed searches and countless theories.
A team from Purdue University claims they have located the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane off the coast of a small, remote and inhospitable island lagoon of Nikumaroro in Kiribati, nearly 1,000 miles from Fiji.
Their theory is based on satellite imagery showing an unusual object on the ocean floor just feet from the shoreline, combined with artifacts, historical records, human remains and eyewitness testimony.
Researchers said the size and composition of the object are an almost exact match for Earhart's plane, and they are planning an expedition to the island this November to investigate further.
Nikumaroro also sits near Earhart's intended flight path, and almost exactly where four of her distress calls were traced, providing even more compelling evidence
Richard Pettigrew, executive director Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), which is joining the hunt, said: 'What we have here is maybe the greatest opportunity ever to finally close the case.
'With such a great amount of very strong evidence, we feel we have no choice but to move forward and hopefully return with proof.'
Earhart took to the sky on June 1, 1937, hoping to become the first female aviator to fly around the world.
She and Noonan departed from Oakland, California, flew to Miami, continued down to South America, crossed the Atlantic to Africa and then headed east through India and South Asia.
A few weeks later, they left Lae in Papua New Guinea with plans to stop on Howland Island on July 2 to refuel. But somewhere over the Pacific, they lost radio contact and were never seen or heard from again.
Their disappearance sparked one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time, leading to countless theories, from crashing at sea to becoming castaways on a remote island, or even being captured by the Japanese.
Now, researchers believe they may finally have a lead, an underwater anomaly known as the Taraia Object, and they are building a compelling case.
Among the strongest pieces of evidence are radio bearings from Earhart's distress transmissions, recorded by the US Navy, Coast Guard, and Pan American World Airways, which all converge near Nikumaroro.
A 2017 forensic analysis of human bones discovered on the island in 1940 found that the dimensions matched Earhart's bone lengths more closely than 99 percent of the population, strongly suggesting they may have belonged to her.
Researchers have also cited period-specific artifacts found on the island, including a woman's shoe, a compact case, a jar of freckle cream, and a medicine vial, all dating to the 1930s.
Another clue is the Bevington Object, a photographic anomaly captured just three months after Earhart's disappearance that appears to show part of the Electra's landing gear on the Nikumaroro reef.
The most recent clue fueling the theory is a 2020 satellite image of the object, showing it has remained in the same spot in the island's lagoon since at least 1938.
ALI joined the hunt that same year after a private citizen, Michael Ashmore, noticed the object while studying 2015 Apple Maps imagery of the island.
That discovery prompted the team to gather 26 additional satellite images from 2009 to 2021, along with three more from Google Earth covering 2022 through 2024.
'This object in the satellite images is exactly the right size to represent the fuselage and tail of the Electra,' ALI said in a statement.
'It also appears to be very reflective and is likely to be metallic.'
The new mission, named the Taraia Object Expedition, will be carried out in three phases over several years.
The first phase involves an on-site examination of Nikumaroro, the second will include a full-scale archaeological excavation and the final phase aims to recover the suspected aircraft remains.
'We believe that the result of this Phase-1 field examination will probably be the confirmation that the Taraia Object is indeed the Lockheed Electra aircraft,' the team shared.
'This work, then, is likely to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.'
This expedition follows several past efforts to crack the case, including a high-profile mission in 2019 by famed ocean explorer Robert Ballard, supported by National Geographic.
Ballard conducted a systematic search of the deep waters around Nikumaroro but found no trace of the aircraft.
However, current researchers said that outcomes do not rule out their theory.
'The plane ending up in the deep water is not actually a likely scenario, given what we know about the prevailing winds and currents along the northwestern edge of the island,' they explained.
In 2017, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) also investigated the island, deploying search dogs that detected the scent of human remains. But once again, no physical evidence was recovered.
Earhart's connection to Purdue University adds another dimension to the search. Before the flight, she was hired by the university to advise women on career opportunities.
'About nine decades ago, Amelia Earhart was recruited to Purdue,' said current Purdue president Mung Chiang. 'The university president later worked with her to prepare an aircraft for her historic flight around the world.'
Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897. Her father was a railroad lawyer, but later suffered from alcoholism and the family often struggled for money.
They moved often, but Earhart completed high school and then started at the Ogontz School in Pennsylvania. She left junior college early to become a nurse's aide in Toronto after visiting her sister in Canada and deciding to care for soldiers wounded in World War I.
After the war, she started a premed program at Columbia but quit when her parents insisted she move back home to live with them in California.
That was where she took her first flight in 1920, as a passenger with veteran flyer Frank Hawks. She was immediately entranced, saying: 'As soon as I left the ground, I knew I had to fly.'
She started lessons - paying for them through her work as a telephone company clerk, and then bought her first plane in 1921, a Kinner Airster.
Earhart set her first record just two years after she flew for the first time and before she even had her official pilot's license. In 1922, she became the first woman to fly at 14,000 feet.
Then, in 1928, promoters started looking for a woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and chose Earhart. As a passenger on Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon's plane, she flew from Newfoundland to Wales and became a celebrity overnight.
She wrote a book about the adventure and went on a lecture tour across the US.
Then in 1932, flying her red Lockheed Vega 5B, she became the first woman - and second person ever - to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic.
The flight took 15 hours and she battled tiredness, cold and mechanical issues that nearly ended her flight in disaster as she plummeted 3,000ft on her descent and was forced to carry out an emergency landing in Northern Ireland.
It did not put her off, and later that year she became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across America in 19 hours and 5 minutes.
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