A Piece of Amelia Earhart’s Airplane?

Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while trying to fly around the world. No conclusive trace of the airplane, Amelia, or her navigator Fred Noonan has ever been found. However, theories abound. One theory says that Amelia landed in then-Japanese territory and was held as a spy and eventually executed. Other theories put her in the Gilbert Islands, or that she crashed and sank at sea after running out of gas. Yet another theory says she landed her plane on uninhabited Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro Island) and lived for a while as a castaway. My own personal favorite is that she drifted with her airplane to near the coast of Paraguay in South America, and she was held in custody by the Paraguayan police before passing away from her injuries, carving her initials AEP (P for her married surname) into a jail wall in Ascunción.

TIGHAR, an organization that spends considerable time and money pursuing the Gardner/Nikumaroro Island theory, reports that it has found an artifact on the island that could have been part of Amelia’s airplane. Other possible parts from Amelia’s airplane were found on Nikumaroro on earlier visits, in nearby locations. These artifacts are incosistent with World War II airplanes, but not inconsistent with the type of parts found on Amelia Earhart's plane. In addition, a skeleton of a castaway, plus parts of a woman's shoe, were found on Nikumaroro in 1941, and the only people known missing in that part of the Pacific who could account for that skeleton was Amelia and her navigator. And lastly, Nikumaroro Island is directly ahead on the last known path Amelia was flying. TIGHAR is careful to point out that they cannot conclusively say that this particular new artifact, nor any of the other evidence, is the smoking gun that proves Amelia made it to Gardner/Nikumaroro. They cannot even say, at this time, that the new artifact was from Amelia’s airplane. All they can say is that it is another piece that could fit the puzzle.

The TIGHAR web site contains all of the research that TIGHAR has done into this fascinating mystery. It’s all there for you to read, although if you like the site, they do also accept donations, which fund further research. The approach they take is as scientific as possible — they state an hypothesis, and then go about testing it using currently accepted scientific, historical and archaeological principles. You can also participate in an ongoing discussion about the evidence pro and con regarding Amelia’s disappearance.