Over eighty years ago she disappeared. Despite extensive searching, no viable leads were found, and she was declared lost. Numerous searches have taken place, scouring the area near her last known location, but nothing has ever been found. At least, until recently.
‘She’ is Amelia Earhart, one of the most famous pilots of all time, known not only for her numerous achievements in aviation, but also for her substantial role in the women’s suffrage movement. When Earhart was 23, she bought a ten dollar introductory flight at an airshow in southern California. Five minutes into the ten minute flight, she knew she had found her passion. A year after she had her own plane, and just two years later, Earhart became the sixteenth woman in the world to receive her pilot’s license. Throughout the early 1930s, she set seven records in solo women’s aviation, including being the first woman to fly solo across the United States. At the same time, she advocated for women’s aviation – once giving thirteen speeches in just twelve days – and also founded an organization for female pilots called the Ninety-Nine.
By this point, Earhart had done incredible things for the women’s suffrage cause and aviation alike, as well as being an honorary member of the U.S. Air Service, and a close friend of presidential Roosevelts. Yet, despite all this, she wanted more.
Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan consult a map of the Pacific with their planned route for circumnavigating the globe. – Photography from Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Earhart’s dream was to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, so in May 1937, she began her journey. Alongside her navigator Fred Noonan, Earhart set off from California in her Lockheed Electra plane to complete the 29,000 mile journey. In early July, after 40 days and 22,000 miles, Ameila and Noonan set off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, to begin the most difficult leg of their trip. The two planned to land on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, called Howland Island, to refuel before setting off again – only one stop away from their final destination and the completion of their journey.
There are more than 2,500 miles of ocean between Lae and Howland Island, not to mention that the island itself is nothing more than a coral atoll 1.5 miles long. This stop was going to be difficult. When nearing the small island, Earhart radioed a U.S. Coast Guard cutter called the Itasca to help guide her landing. The Itasca was in contact with the Electra for some time, at one point the transmission signal was so strong that the ship’s radio operator ran outside to look for the plane. However, most of the ship’s returning transmissions were not reaching Earhart and Noonan.
“KHAQQ calling Itasca: We must be on you but cannot see you … gas is running low … been unable to reach you by radio … we are flying at 1,000 feet.” (Forssmann, 2019)
Earhart’s haunting final transmission to the Itasca confirmed that they were flying on line 157 337, a northwest-southeast line that bisects Howland Island, but whether they were flying towards the island or away is unknown.
For the next two weeks, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy scoured the area by plane and ship but found no trace of Earhart, Noonan, or the Electra. Civilian mariners, enlisted by Earhart’s husband George Putnam, continued the hunt, but in the end failed as well. Over the last eighty years, enthusiasts have searched for signs of Earhart or her plane in the Marshall Islands, on Nikumaroro, and deep underwater, all with no avail.
With no actual evidence concerning what may have happened to Earhart and Noonan, three major theories have arisen: an open-ocean crash, a Nikumaroro castaway, and the Marshall Islands conspiracy.
The E/V Nautilus, a ship equipped with high-tech deep-sea technology that is being used to scour the ocean floor for traces of Earhart’s plane. – Photograph by Ernie Kovacs, National Geographic
The open-ocean crash is the official U.S. position on Earhart’s disappearance, which states that the Electra ran out of fuel before reaching Howland Island. As a result, expeditions have been conducted searching the ocean area where it is theorized that the Electra crash took place. By using Earhart’s broken-up radio transmissions, as well as what is known about the Electra’s fuel supply, a Maryland-based company called Nautico determined the ocean area they believed would eventually yield the Electra’s remains. They organized a search in 2002, and in 2006, to search the ocean floor of this area using high-tech, deep-sea sonar technology. Neither expedition yielded results.
Another team organized by the Waitt Institute for Discovery in 2009 searched an area west of Howland roughly the size of Delaware, this time using deep-sea robots. While no clues were found, the team has stated that they still remain hopeful.
Others theorize that Earhart and Noonan may have become castaways on a nearby island called Nikumaroro Island. Earhart’s last radio transmission indicated that the Electra was flying on line 157 337, and while in the northwest direction of the line there only lies open ocean, the southeast direction leads to Nikumaroro. Evidence for this theory includes 121 radio messages that were received over the next ten days, at least 57 of which could have been from the Electra. However, in order for any of these messages to have been sent by Earhart, the Electra would have needed to land relatively intact.
A photograph of Nikumaroro Island, where it is theorized that the Electra made an emergency landing when Earhart and Noonan were unable to locate Howland Island, stranding them as castaways. – Photograph by Rob Barrel, Nai’a Fiji
The Nikumaroro-landing theory relies on the following facts: when Earhart disappeared, the tide on Nikumaroro was low, revealing a long and flat reef which could have been used to land a plane. Eventually, the tide would have lifted the Electra off of the reef, sending it into the open ocean. Additionally, most of the radio messages were sent at night during low tide, which researchers theorize may have been because Earhart and Noonan wanted to avoid the daytime heat inside the aluminum plane. Radio transmissions stopped on July 13, 1937.
The evidence doesn’t stop there, however. Later in 1937, a British party intent on colonizing Nikumaroro explored the island. One of the colonial officers reported finding what looked like a makeshift shelter. He also photographed an unidentified object that may have been a plane’s landing gear. After the island was settled, colonists continued to report finding airplane parts, some of which could have come from the Electra. The colonial administrator later reported finding thirteen bones near the remnants of a campfire, as well as two shoes–a man’s and a woman’s–and a box that once held a navigational device called a sextant. Investigation of the bones determined that they could have been from a woman of Earhart’s relative size and build, but they were lost after being shipped to Fiji.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is currently researching this theory, and has launched twelve expeditions to the island. Over the course of these expeditions they’ve identified a site that matches the description of where the bones were found. At the site there is evidence of multiple campfires, as well as remnants of clams, fish, turtles, and birds, which indicates that someone ate there. Based on the way the clams and fish were consumed, this person was likely not a Pacific islander. A few glass bottles of 1930s-era style were also found, one of which may have contained freckle cream–a cosmetic Earhart likely used.
The third theory, or conspiracy, is the Marshall Islands Conspiracy: it claims that Earhart and Noonan ended up 800 miles away from their intended destination in the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands. Here, they were taken hostage as U.S. spies. Some believe this resulted in their executions, while others believe the two returned to the U.S. under new names for national security reasons.
The photograph that a History Channel documentary has claimed shows Fred Noonan (left) and Amelia Earhart (sitting) alive on a dock in the Marshall Islands in 1937. – Courtesy of Les Kinney/U.S. National Archives/A+E Networks
The version of this theory in which Earhart survived claimed that she returned to the U.S. under a fake name, Irene Craigmile Bolam. Bolam has denied this, and sued the author of a book called Amelia Earhart Lives which claimed she was actually Amelia Earhart.
Another book written in 2003 by Rollin C. Reineck, called Amelia Earhart Survived, claims that Earhart planned to cut communications and ditch her plane in the Marshall Islands, a scheme that would have allowed the U.S. government to rescue her and perform pre-war reconnaissance on the Japanese at the same time. However, this plan went wrong and Earhart and Noonan were taken hostage. A pre-WWII photograph has backed this theory since a History Channel documentary claimed it showed Earhart and Noonan alive at dock on one of the islands. An enthusiast named Dick Spink has continued research on this theory by collecting oral histories on an atoll in the Marshall Islands called Mili, on which residents claim that Earhart arrived.
All in all, most Earhart enthusiasts have discredited the Marshall Islands Conspiracy.
For a long time, it seemed that there was not much more to be found, and the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance was going to stay just that: a mystery. However, recent evidence has come to light in the form of a deep-sea image containing an object that appears to be a plane.
A sonar image captured in the central Pacific in 2023 by the exploration company Deep Sea Vision may depict Amelia Earhart’s long-lost plane. – Photograph Courtesy of Deep Sea Vision
This image was captured in late 2023 by Deep Sea Vision, a venture founded by former U.S. Air Force pilot Tony Romeo, in the area of the Pacific where Earhart’s plane is likely to be located. The image was captured using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with highly advanced sonar technologies, but as it is not a photograph, the image is grainy and blurred. Sonar uses low frequency sound waves which can be distorted, resulting in low-resolution images.
While it seems obvious that the image contains a plane, and its location is roughly on Earhart’s flight path, it’s too soon to tell whether this discovery will mark the end of Earhart’s mystery. Some experts claim that the supposed plane doesn’t match the Electra, and others have brought up how its location is far from the area where it would have made sense for Earhart’s radio transmissions to have such a strong signal.
Most importantly, Deep Sea Vision has not yet confirmed the object’s identity. The image was discovered while looking through data storage files as they were preparing for another expedition, and as the camera on their AUV had broken, it wasn’t worth the money to go back without being able to take actual photographs. Still, Romero intends on returning to the site for confirmation later this year – this time, with an operational camera.
Amelia Earhart’s story, her life in aviation, her fight for women’s rights, and the mystery of her disappearance has enthralled the world for over eighty years. Fascination with her life and achievements is more often than not tied to this mystery. Now that researchers are closer than ever to finally learning the truth about how and why she vanished, the question that needs to be asked is: what comes after?
Works Cited:
- Greshko, Michael. “Top 3 Theories for Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance.” National Geographic, 6 Jul. 2017, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/amelia-earhart-disappearance-theories-spd, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
- Forssmann, Alec. “Missing! The unsolved mystery of Amelia Earhart’s last flight.” National Geographic, 1 Jul. 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/aviator-amelia-earhart-last-flight, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
- Hartigan, Rachel. “Colossal crabs may hold clue to Amelia Earhart fate.” National Geographic, 6 Jun. 2023, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/colossal-crabs-hold-clue-amelia-earhart-fate, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
- Hartigan, Rachel. “Why does Amelia Earhart still fascinate us?” National Geographic, 17 Oct. 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-amelia-earhart-still-fascinates, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
- Hartigan, Rachel. “Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Can he find Amelia Earhart’s airplane?” National Geographic, 24 Jul. 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/bob-ballard-found-titanic-can-find-amelia-earhart-airplane, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
- Hartigan, Rachel. “Exclusive: Inside the search for Amelia Earhart’s airplane.” National Geographic, 12 Aug. 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/inside-search-for-amelia-earhart-airplane, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Irene Craigmile Bolam.” Wikipedia, 30 Jan. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Craigmile_Bolam, Accessed 27 Feb. 2024.