During this month 80 years ago, pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart went missing while attempting to fly around the world. Despite massive search and rescue operations, she, her navigator Fred Noonan, and their Lockheed Electra airplane were never found. Earhart and Noonan were officially declared lost at sea 17 days after the flight and after a large search mission, but were they really lost?
There are a number of theories about what happened to the pilot and the navigator:
Another theory says that Earhart, who was only the second person to ever fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, crash landed near Gardner Island, also known as Nikumaroro, part of the nation of Kiribati. Fragments of evidence suggest that a western woman may have been on the island in the 1930s, but there’s no conclusive evidence that this is where Earhart met her end.
New Evidence May Confirm Another Theory
In 1987, 50 years after the Electra’s disappearance, the Marshall Islands released a series of stamps commemorating Earhart’s crash landing on the Mili Atoll. History is only now revealing that they may have finally recovered a vital piece of evidence that would not only confirm the record-breaking pilot crash near the Marshall Islands, but also that she, her navigator, and their plane were recovered and captured by the Japanese military.
A Detailed Investigation