Amelia Earhart in an undated picture taken in the 1930s.(File/AFP/Getty Images);
With no concrete remains of either Earhart, her co-pilot Fred Noonan or airplane ever found, speculation and rumors about their fate have flourished.
The most popular theory nowadays is that Earhart's plane simply ran out of fuel and sank into the Pacific.
But now, an American organization, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), says its research shows Earhart, co-pilot and plane landed on Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro.
TIGHAR says the idea that the plane crashed into the ocean is most unlikely:
Howland was by no means the only island within range and the aircraft should have had more than enough fuel to reach an alternate destination. Certainly the crew was highly motivated to reach land and Noonan was probably the finest aerial navigator in the world.
So if Earhart and Noonan landed on Nikumaroro, what definitely happened to them? are their bones were also eaten by giant coconut crabs?
Nikomaroro, abandoned on a desert island where temperatures often exceed 100 degrees, even in the shade, Earhart and Noonan likely eventually succumbed to any number of causes, including injury and infection, food poisoning from toxic fish, or simply dehydration," Discovery Channel's Archaeorama News says.
Why there are no bodies been found or even a single remains?
"If Amelia died on Nikumaroro, her body was eaten by crabs. That's pretty much a given,” Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR’s executive director, told Archaeorama News.
But not just any crabs — giant coconut crabs.
However, it is unclear if the crabs were also capable to eat the wreckage of Earhart's plane. Or they were able to crash on the ocean?
Another claims, just as a biopic of her life is released, a group of researchers claim to have found the spot in the western Pacific where Amelia Earhart disappeared on an attempted round-the-world flight in 1937. TIGHAR said it has evidence that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on a coral atoll called Nikumaroro - part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati - and became castaways and eventually succumbed to disease, thirst, hunger, or injury. Must be a good evidence if the plane could also be found there.
In another report, Exhibit A, according to TIGHAR, there are human bones that were recovered from Nikumaroro in 1940 by a British Colonial Service Officer named Gerald Gallagher. Sadly, those bones have been lost, but records of the discovery indicate they matched Earhart's physical characteristics. Whatever other skeletal remains might have been on the island, though, have likely been plundered by the thousands of terrifying coconut crabs in the area. It could be the remains of Noonan completely eaten by the giant coconut crabs?
Another physical evidence includes a "woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Noonan," as well as reports that radio signals had been picked up for several days after the disappearance that could have only been transmitted from land. Hope these can be verified.
Richard Gillespie, Executive director, is planning a $500,000 research expedition next summer to gather more evidence for his theory. If he does, then one of the most enduring mysteries of early 20th century aviation might be solved. If only the coconut crabs could talk.
In another related report, more than 70 years after her disappearance, Amelia Earhart, above, has once again eluded her pursuers, as a museum item believed to be a lock of her hair has turned out to be a piece of thread. The International Women’s Air and Space Museum in Cleveland put the sample on display this year, Agence France-Presse reported, and described it as a strand of Earhart’s hair that had been recovered by a White House maid after the aviatrix, who was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, stayed there before her final flight. But DNA analysis revealed that it did not match other possessions of Earhart that were found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro.
An employee of the Melbourne Aquarium with a coconut crab, the largest living crab in the world, which can climb coconut trees to harvest coconuts which they can break with their huge claws and have been gruesomely know to feed on injured or unconscious people. (William West/AFP/Getty Images)
Earhart went missing over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during an attempted solo flight around the world. The thread still remains on display at the museum as part of an Earhart exhibition that runs through Nov. 15. “We’ve changed the sign and explained everything,” Heather Alexander, the museum’s manager, told Agence France-Presse, adding that visitors “show more interest and are very grateful that we are telling the truth and the whole story.”
Do you think that the claims were right for Amelia Earhart?
