Contents
- Mystery Of Amelia Earhart's Disappearance
- Amelia Earhart Disappearance Theories
- Amelia Earhart Mystery Theories
- Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Facts
In the 73 years since Amelia Earhart vanished into thin air, a number of theories have emerged about how and where the famed aviator died. According to some researchers, new discoveries on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro may bring us closer than ever before to an answer.
Amelia Earhart Mystery May Be Solved, Researchers Say: The Two-Way Richard Jantz, a forensics expert at the University of Tennessee, reanalyzed measurements from the bones. He says they are. The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart became a national treasure before her mysterious disappearance. But just what happened to her. Don't forget to Subscribe for more.
Amelia Earhart‘s daring round-the-world-flight was cut short when her Lockheed Electra disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on June 2, 1937. Within hours, rescue workers began scouring the area for signs of the famed aviator and her navigator, Fred Noonan.
The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard launched the largest and most expensive air and sea search in American history. When their efforts failed, Earhart’s husband of six years, George Putnam, financed his own search but came up equally empty-handed. A living legend had vanished into thin air.
In an official report, the U.S. government concluded that the two seasoned flyers, unable to locate their destination of Howland Island, ran out of fuel, crashed into the water and sank. Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939. The question of why and where her plane went down, however, has never been put to rest.
In the seven decades since Earhart’s disappearance, a number of hypotheses have emerged, some with scientific evidence behind them and others based on more dubious claims. Some theorists, for instance, believe Earhart was actually a secret agent working for the U.S. government, pointing to her close friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.
Mystery Of Amelia Earhart's Disappearance
They suggest that the plane crashed after its pilots intentionally deviated from their course to spy on Japanese-occupied islands in the Pacific, or that Earhart and Noonan landed on one of them and were taken prisoner. Yet another theory holds that Earhart returned safely to the United States, changed her name and lived a long life in obscurity.
Another widely held belief is that Earhart and Noonan touched down on a remote South Pacific island called Nikumaroro, which at the time of their disappearance was uninhabited and known as Gardner Island. The Earhart Project, a division of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), is dedicated to investigating the Nikumaroro hypothesis.
TIGHAR has been combing the island since 1989, assembling a collection of artifacts that includes improvised tools, shoe remnants and aircraft wreckage that is consistent with Earhart’s Electra. They have also discovered that, several years after Earhart vanished, a British colonial officer found the remains of a castaway on Nikumaroro. The bones were sent to Fiji for analysis, but were ultimately misplaced and lost.
During TIGHAR’s 2010 expedition, the team uncovered some of their most compelling clues yet. While foraging in a spot where they had previously identified traces of a campfire, they came across three pieces of a pocketknife, shells that had been cut open, fragments of a glass cosmetic jar, bits of makeup and—perhaps most intriguing of all—bone fragments that may be from a human.
New Evidence Discovered
Amelia Earhart Disappearance Theories
According to HISTORY’s upcoming investigative special “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” retired federal agent Les Kinney scoured the National Archives for records that may have been overlooked in the search for the lost aviator.
Among thousands of documents he uncovered was a photograph stamped with official Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) markings reading “Marshall Islands, Jaluit Atoll, Jaluit Island, Jaluit Harbor.” In the photo, a ship can be seen towing a barge with an airplane on the back; on a nearby dock are several people.
Kinney argues the photo must have been taken before 1943, as U.S. air forces conducted more than 30 bombing runs on Jaluit in 1943-44. He believes the plane on the barge is the Electra, and that two of the people on the dock are Earhart and Noonan.
As part of the program’s investigation, Doug Carner, a digital forensic analyst, examined the photo and determined it was authentic and had not been manipulated, while Kent Gibson, another forensic analyst who specializes in facial recognition, said it was “very likely” the individuals in it are Earhart and Noonan. Both analysts identified the ship in the photo as the Japanese military vessel Koshu Maru, which is thought to be the ship that took Earhart and Noonan away after their crash landing.
Amelia Earhart disappearance '99 percent' solved
The 81-year-old mystery surrounding American aviator Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has baffled sleuths for decades, but a U.S. forensic expert has published new evidence in ‘Forensic Anthropology’ that bones discovered on Nikumaroro Island may be hers.
A scientific study claims to shed new light on the decades-long mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart.
Richard Jantz, an emeritus anthropology professor at the University of Tennessee, argues that bones discovered on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro in 1940 were likely Earhart’s remains. The research contradicts a forensic analysis of the remains in 1941 that described the bones as belonging to a male. The bones, which were subsequently lost, continue to be a source of debate.
Earhart, who was attempting to fly around the world, disappeared with navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937, during a flight from Papua New Guinea to Howland Island in the Pacific.
The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, Earhart was one of the most famous people in the world at the time of her disappearance. Thus, a number of theories have emerged about her fate.
This May 20, 1937 photo, provided by The Paragon Agency, shows aviator Amelia Earhart at the tail of her Electra plane, taken by Albert Bresnik at Burbank Airport in Burbank, Calif. (Albert Bresnik/The Paragon Agency via AP)
One well-publicized theory is that Earhart died a castaway after landing her plane on the remote island of Nikumaroro, a coral atoll 1,200 miles from the Marshall Islands. Some 13 human bones were found on Nikumaroro, also known as Gardner Island, three years after Earhart’s disappearance.
In 1941, the bones were analyzed by Dr. David Hoodless, principal of the Central Medical School, Fiji. However, Jantz says that modern analysis techniques may have delivered a different result, particularly with regard to gender.
“When Hoodless conducted his analysis, forensic osteology was not yet a well-developed discipline,” he explains in a paper published in the journal Forensic Anthropology. “Evaluating his methods with reference to modern data and methods suggests that they were inadequate to his task; this is particularly the case with his sexing method. Therefore his sex assessment of the Nikumaroro bones cannot be assumed to be correct.”
Hoodless used 19th-century forensic science and described the bones as possibly belonging to a “short, stocky muscular European,” according to Jantz. The 1941 analysis described the remains belonged to a male around 5'5.5'.
Earhart’s pilot’s license, however, recorded her height as 5'8' and her driver’s license as 5'7'. Photos also show Earhart’s slender frame. Noonan was 6'¼.'
Earhart's navigator Fred Noonan is on the far right of this photo (1937 AP)
Jantz says that the methods used by Hoodless underestimated height compared to modern techniques.
Amelia Earhart Mystery Theories
Hoodless used three criteria in his research – the ratio of the femur’s circumference to length, the angle of the femur and pelvis, and the subpubic angle, which is formed between two pelvis bones. The subpubic angle is wider in women than in men.
Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Facts
Jantz says that the subpubic angle is the most reliable of Hoodless’ criteria, but even that is “subject to considerable variation, much of which was little understood in 1941.”
The scientist also compared Hoodless’ measurements to data from 2,776 other people, as well as studying photos of Earhart and her clothing measurements. “This analysis reveals that Earhart is more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99 percent of individuals in a large reference sample,” said Jantz. “This strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart.”
Sept. 9, 2011: An original, unpublished personal photo of Amelia Earhart dated 1937, along with goggles she was wearing during her first plane crash are seen at Clars Auction Gallery in Oakland, Calif. Another set of her goggles sold several years ago for more than $100,000. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Jantz told Fox News that that 2,776 individuals used in the reference group were all Americans of European ancestry. They lived during the last half of the 19th century and most of the 20th century, he added.
Despite Jantz’s skepticism about the 1941 analysis of the bones, some modern scientists have backed up the Hoodless results.
While some people are convinced that Nikumaroro is Earhart’s final resting place, another theory suggests that she met her end on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Last year, controversy swirled around a photo that was touted as providing a vital clue as to Earhart’s fate.
The Associated Press contributed to this article. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers