Researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) may be one step closer to solving the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart during her attempted around-the-world flight in 1937. [TIGHAR research video at end]
From YouTube/InformOverload –
TIGHAR, which has spent more than 25 years investigating Earhart’s ill-fated final voyage, believes Earhart’s plane did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, as many believe, but rather that she and her co-pilot Fred Noon were able to make a landing on the remote, uninhabited island of Nikumaroro where the pair died as castaways. Researchers from TIGHAR have previously recovered a number of artifacts on and around Nikumaroro, which lies some 350 miles southeast of Earhart’s target destination on Howland Island, including aluminum metal sheetsthat match the dimensions and features of Earhart’s plane as well as personal items such as a women’s mirror, flight jacket buttons and an anti-freckle facial cream they believe Earhart was known to have used. In 2013 they released sonar images of an anomaly, 660 feet under water, that they believe to be the remains of Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra.
This most recent discovery, however, actually dates back much further, to partial human remains discovered on Nikumaroro (then known as Gardner Island) in 1940. At the time, a British medical examiner identified the bones as those a male castaway, but TIGHAR began disputing those findings in the late 1990s, stating that they were “consistent with a female of Earhart’s height and origin.” The bones themselves disappeared decades ago, but earlier this year, when forensic anthropologist Richard Jantz was re-examining the 1941 medical file on the bones, he noticed that the forearms were longer than normal, a trait common to women born in the late 19th century—as Earhart was, in 1897.
TIGHAR turned to a forensic imaging specialist, Jeff Glickman, who used historical photos of Earhart to estimate her measurements, focusing on the humerus (upper arm bone) and radius (lower arm bone). Glickman found that ratio of the humerus and radius bones in the photos was a nearly exact match as the remains found on Nikumaroro. “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,” Gillespie said.
TIGHAR is currently preparing for yet another expedition to Nikumaroro—its 12th—currently slated for next year, the 80th anniversary of Earhart and Noon’s disappearance.
From YouTube/TIGHARchannel
