Posted on 10/06/2025 8:55:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers from Purdue University are set to travel to the South Pacific to determine if a "visual anomaly" on a remote island is the wreck of Amelia Earhart's lost plane, saying there is "very strong" evidence the object is the iconic aviator's aircraft.
Earhart was attempting to become the first female pilot to circle the world when she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937. Earhart, Noonan and their plane, an Electra 10E, were never found. Recently, President Trump ordered records related to Earhart be declassified.
In 2020, researchers looking at satellite imagery identified a "visual anomaly" known as the Taraia Object in a lagoon on Nikumaroro, a small island in Kiribati about halfway between Australia and Hawaii, according to a news release from Purdue University. Nikumaroro is about 400 miles southeast of Howland Island, Earhart and Noonan's planned destination.
The underwater object has been visible in photos dating back to 1938, the year after Earhart and Noonan disappeared.
A team of researchers from Purdue University, the Purdue Research Foundation and the Archaeological Legacy Institute will travel to Nikumaroro to inspect the object in November. The team will first take photos and videos of the site, then use magnetometers and sonar devices to scan the area. Then, the item will be dredged and lifted from the water so researchers can attempt to identify it.
A mystery 88 years in the making! 🔎
Purdue joins the Archaeological Legacy Institute in a South Pacific expedition to search for Amelia Earhart’s missing Lockheed Electra airplane. https://t.co/WqEEWi6XwA
— Purdue University (@LifeAtPurdue) October 1, 2025 Theories have abounded about Earhart and Noonan's fates since their disappearance. One theory suggests that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro and was marooned on the island before her death. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a nonprofit organization based in Pennsylvania, has collected evidence it says supports the theory. Richard Pettigrew, the executive director of the Archaeological Legacy Institute, said that the expedition offers a chance to find "smoking-gun proof" that confirms the theory.
''We gathered up many more satellite images, did historical research, found other imagery that relates to it," Pettrigrew said. "We're going to go look and identify it. And if we're right, we'll in fact identify the lost Electra. We could be wrong but I think the evidence is very, very strong that this is, in fact what it is.''
However, Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has expressed skepticism. "We've looked there in that spot, and there's nothing there," he told NBC News in July.
Steve Schultz, a Purdue senior vice president and the university's general counsel, will be a field assistant on the expedition. He said that if the object is identified as Earhart's plane, the university hopes it can transport the plane home. Earhart worked at Purdue University for two years in the 1930s, and the Purdue Research Foundation originally paid for the airplane that Earhart flew, the school said. She planned to return the craft to the university after her trip around the world.
"A successful identification would be the first step toward fulfilling Amelia's original plan to return the Electra to West Lafayette after her historic flight," Schultz said in the news release.
Last year, an expedition team captured a sonar image in the Pacific Ocean that appeared to resemble Earhart's plane resting at the bottom of the sea. It turned out to be a rock formation.
If the plane has been in the lagoon for 88 years there may be no human remains. So even if it is her plane, they may not be able to confirm the long-held suspicion that she is deceased.
“Dreams Amelia, dreams and false alarms”
She isn’t a 120+ year old castaway living in a grass shack somewhere, that’s for sure.
However, Fred Noonan was an extremely competent navigator both at sea and in the air.
LOL!
And the goodies in Al Capone’s vault!
.
That is definitely NOT a tree.
The photos clearly show that it is a Nazi submarine. /s
Time dilation like on Star Trek.
Nice! I thought my 2008 Frontier with 146k was doing good. It has required exactly one repair that wasn’t normal maintenance, a leak in the pipe that carries the power steering fluid.
A very brave woman,
Great... Another ‘we found Amelia’s plane’ story... LOL... 2020 and they’re just checking it out now... Seriously?
I do get some entertainment playing around with the world map on this iPad Pro.
The atoll is easily locatable and there is something like the object you show rather visible on the south side of the mouth to the only lagoon. It is shown to be rather buried in sand on the map. The island has pretty much no altitude or any trees.
I would think that the lagoon mouth of an atoll would see a lot of water moving in and out, but I don’t know.
Anyway, for what its worth...
Records are classifiable due to protect either human sources or technological advances. Human sources that are now 95 would have been 7 years of age in 1937 and the ham radios of that age are long since surpassed by cell phones and the internet. Government idiocy at its worst.
LOL! Sorry, I was only kidding
Yes, seriously, why DIDN’T she consider a sea plane?
Identify it in place but leave it where it is. It’s Earhart and Noonan’s gravesite.
Photo’s that have existed since 1938, and yet all the previous expeditions never followed up / checked out this lagoon? Something fishy about this.
I completely agree. Back in the early 90's, when I was researching the military and pension records for Civil War soldiers at the National Archives, I can't tell you how many times I came across pension records that were still being held by the VA. In order to gain access to those records, I had to write my Congressional Representative, who helped put me in touch with the Regional VA office in Buffalo, NY, so I could travel there to view the records. The only reason the VA should still possess the pension record of a Civil War soldier, is if his widow was still alive and receiving benefits. The last Civil War widow died in 2020, but I bet that the VA still holds hundreds, if not thousands Civil War pension records that they haven't turned over to the Archives.
Trying to do historical research, and even family genealogy research through the government can be very frustrating.
WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO GO ?!?!?
Every month or two, I see this reported. I could get on a plane TODAY, and be there sometime tomorrow.
What are they waiting for?
Nope. There are guidelines that are usually ignored. I was the public affairs officer at a base in Thailand that was being closed. MAC-V Pubic Affairs sent me a message saying a news team wanted to visit the base to do a story. They asked if I needed any support from them. The message was classified secret, which meant I had to keep it in a safe and account for it. I sent back a one-word reply, “No,” and classified it Secret. For the next six months they sent messages asking why my reply was classified, which I ignored. They finally notified me that they had declassified the message.
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