New research lessens the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance

In 1937, American aviator Amelia Earhart was reported missing after disappearing thousands of feet above the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to fly around the world.

In 2018, the groundbreaking pilot was found–well, parts of her at least.

Upon a reexamination conducted by Richard Jantz, a researcher affiliated with the University of Tennessee, several bones discovered on a Western Pacific island were determined to “very likely” be the remains of Earhart.

“The data revealed that the bones have more similarity to Earhart than to 99 percent of individuals in a large reference sample,” a statement from The University of Tennessee said.

Because, when initially discovered in 1940, the remains were falsely determined by physician D.W. Hoodless to belong to a European male, the bones themselves were discarded and unfortunately are long gone. Jantz, however, was still able to analyze the kept data collected in 1940, eventually finding evidence which supports his belief that the first test incorrectly identified the sex of the remains.

“When Hoodless conducted his analysis, forensic osteology was not yet a well-developed discipline,” Jantz explains in the published research journal Forensic Anthropology. “Evaluating his methods with reference to modern data and methods suggests that they were inadequate to his task; this is particularly the case with his sexing method. Therefore his sex assessment of the Nikumaroro bones cannot be assumed to be correct.”

This discovery is particularly important because it disproves the official U.S. government explanation of Earhart’s disappearance: the Lockheed Electra (in which Earhart was flying) simply ran out of fuel above the Pacific.

The new evidence, opposing this explanation, supports that Earhart– along with her navigator Fred Noonan– actually crashed on or near Nikumaroro Island (which was only about 400 miles short of their destination) most likely as a result of a navigation error.

Although conspiracies of interference, contrasting evidence and conflicting theories are still extensively disputed and likely will be for years to come, one fact remains certain: her influence on equality and advancement for women are still widely felt, and where she died will never change that.