Modern Mysteries

Has Amelia Earhart's skeleton been found ?

By T.K. Randall
November 4, 2016

Image: Amelia Earhart
Credit: Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection, LC-DIG-hec-40747 When Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra in 1937, the question of what happened to her would go on to become one of the most enduring mysteries of the modern age.

In recent years however clues have been found suggesting that Earhart's plane may have gone down somewhere in the remote Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro.

One such clue - a partial skeleton discovered on an island in the region back in the 1940s - is perhaps the strongest evidence yet that the aviator survived for several weeks as a castaway.The badly damaged bones were found alongside animal remains and a campfire. A woman's shoe was also found there, as was a box that would have contained a nautical navigational device known as a sextant - something Earhart's navigator Fred Noonan would have been carrying.

While researchers have been unable to track down the actual bones themselves, measurements taken by a British doctor at the time seem to confirm that they match up with Earhart's build.

The find was detailed in a document entitled "Discovery of Human Remains on Gardner Island" which was found in the national archives in Kiribati by World War II historian Peter McQuarrie.

"The match does not, of course, prove that the castaway was Amelia Earhart, but it is a significant new data point that tips the scales further in that direction," said a spokesman for The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).

Source: Live Science

Tags: Amelia Earhart