New Amelia Earhart Investigation to Examine "Visual Anomaly"

Researchers are heading to a Pacific Island in what looks likely to be a good chance of solving "the greatest mystery of the 20th century".

Earhart standing under the nose of her Lockheed

It's 88 years since the famous aviator disappeared in 1937 during her attempt to be the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world, with her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Where she disappeared has long been a mystery, but this November, a field team organized by the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University will spend five days in Nikumaroro, a Pacific island between Hawaii and Australia, to determine if a plane-like silhouette in its lagoon - known as the Taraia Object - is Earhart’s lost aircraft, a Lockheed 10-E Electra.

Satellite imagery of the Taraia Object shows that it’s about the size of a plane. It’s part of a body of evidence backing the Nikumaroro hypothesis, which speculates that Earhart and Noonan landed on an uninhabited island when their attempt to circumnavigate the globe went awry, and they subsequently perished there.

Is that Earhart's Lockheed in the water?

Several radio transmissions from Earhart's plane indicate a location converging on Nikumaroro, according to the Purdue Research Foundation. Furthermore, various artifacts, including a woman's shoe, a compact case, and a medicine vial, have been found on Nikumaroro, potentially dating back to the 1930s, according to Popular Mechanics.​

If the research team successfully identifies the missing plane, they plan to bring it back to Purdue University, which funded the aircraft. “Both Earhart and her husband and manager, George Putnam, expressed their intention to return the Electra to Purdue after her historic flight,” said Senior Vice President Steven Schultz, adding that the “expedition offers the best chance not only to solve perhaps the greatest mystery of the 20th century, but also to fulfill Amelia’s wishes and bring the Electra home.”

Called the Taraia Object Expedition, the goal is to “close the case” on Amelia Earhart’s disappearance on 2 July 1937.