Free Republic

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. ... 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...

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...

Tantalizing new clues are surfacing in the Amelia Earhart mystery, according to researchers scouring a remote South Pacific island believed to be the final resting place of the legendary aviatrix. Three pieces of a pocket knife and fragments of what might be a broken cosmetic glass jar are adding new evidence that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed and eventually died as castaways on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati. The island was some 300 miles southeast of their target destination, Howland Island. "These objects have the potential to yield DNA, specifically what...

Could one of aviation's most enduring mysteries be solved? An aircraft recovery group says it may already have a part of Amelia Earhart's plane, and it thinks it knows where to find the rest of it. The International Historic Aircraft Recovery Group says new testing of a piece of metal found in the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean in 1991 gives the group "increasing confidence" that it's a part of the Lockheed Electra. In a press release the group argues that the aluminum debris is likely a patch that Earhart had put on her plane in place of a...

Film to reveal heroine as a spy who helped JapanBy Jack Webster   American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, did not die at sea in 1937. Rather, she became a Japanese collaborator after being caught spying for the US during second world war. This and other amazing revelations are to be the basis of a Hollywood film that aims to uncover the strange truth behind her mysterious disappearance. Earhart was already an American heroine when, at midnight on July 2, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan took off from New...

After some technical problems, the search for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra has begun near the reef slope off the west end of Nikumaroro, a tiny uninhabited island between Hawaii and Australia where the legendary aviator may have landed and died as a castaway 75 years ago. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is carrying on the the hunt, which relies on a torpedo-shaped Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) called Bluefin-21 and a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV).

US aircraft history buffs are hopeful that tiny bones along with artefacts from the 1930s found on a remote Pacific island may reveal the fate of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. In one of aviation's most enduring mysteries, Earhart took off from Lae, in what is now Papua New Guinea, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe via the equator in 1937 and was never seen again. A massive search at the time failed to find the flyer and her navigator Fred Noonan, who were assumed to have died after ditching their Lockheed Electra aircraft in the ocean, according to the Amelia...