In 1937, Amelia Earhart took off from Lae, in what is now Papua New Guinea, in an attempt to become the first person to travel around the world by following the equator. She was never seen again. For years, it was assumed that Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan crashed their Lockheed Electra into the ocean and went to a watery grave. However, a group believes they have found Amelia Earhart’s bones on uninhabited Nikumaroro Island in Kiribati.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR, has been searching the South Pacific for Amelia Earhart for 22 years and have been on 10 different expeditions to the island. Previous discoveries include small US-made glass bottles, a woman’s make-up compact, and a broken mirror. Now, they believe they have discovered either the finger bones of Amelia Earhart or the remains of a turtle, depending on DNA results from Molecular Science Laboratories at Oklahoma University.
“We’re very hopeful that this will produce the result we’re looking for,” said TIGHAR executive director Rick Gillespie. “We have every reason to believe that this is the site where Amelia Earhart lived and died as a castaway. The magic of the Earhart mystery is such that just having a bone, that may be a human bone, that may lead to DNA that may turn out to match Earhart’s DNA is of great interest.”
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