This episode was suggested by a listener, Penny R. If you'd like to suggest a topic, you can do so on Facebook and Instagram at Morbid Curiosity podcast on Twitter, at Morbid podcast, and on our website, www.morbidkuriositypodcast.com. If you'd like to become a patron of the MCP, go to bit.ly slash Morbid patron, and you can support us for as little as $1 in episode. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved.
Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called Morbid Curiosity, and it has gripped hundreds of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hallie, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast. When asked to name some of the most mysterious disappearances, Amelia Earhart is near the top of most people's lists.
Earhart was not only a pioneer of aviation during its humble beginnings, she was a pioneer of women's equality before the women's rights movement took off. She was also a savvy businesswoman, using her celebrity to fund her flights, as well as promote women in aviation and other male-dominated careers. During her life, Earhart was a celebrated public figure, and when she mysteriously disappeared, during her attempt to fly around the world, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, the world was shocked, confused, and utterly devastated. However, the strange way she disappeared only added to her mystique, and therefore Amelia Earhart has remained a fascinating figure in history.
Before we talk about her disappearance, let's talk about who Amelia Earhart was. Amelia Earhart was born in 1897, in Achinson, Kansas, a town of around 15,000. She was the oldest daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart. Edwin was a railway lawyer, and Amy, while a society woman, was also prone to adventure, and was the first woman to sum it to Pikes Peak.
Amy's family was held in high regard in Achinson, being descended from the town founders. When her younger sister Muriel was born, Amelia went to live with her grandparents. Amelia's grandfather was a bit of a hermit, and her grandmother was happy for the company of the energetic young Amelia. Despite having a run of the house, Amelia was held to quite high standards of old-fashioned ladylike behavior in Achinson, which she did not appreciate.
Therefore, she spent most of her time playing outside the house. She and her close friends grew up playing games of imaginary adventure. As boys were allowed to do much more than girls, they pretended to be boys and slayed dragons and bandits in search of treasure. Amelia was the ringleader, learning new games or inventing them herself, then teaching the others to play.
She kept all of this from her grandmother, knowing she could get away with it if she avoided making too many waves in town. Amelia spent the summers with her parents in Kansas City. Her parents struggled financially, mostly because her father couldn't seem to make ends meet, despite help from his wife's parents. In 1903, he ran out of money at his law firm.
He tried to become an inventor for a time, but had little success. He eventually found another position as a lawyer in 1907, and then another in Des Moines, Iowa in 1908 with the railway. In 1913, the family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then to Springfield, Missouri in 1914, traveling with Edwin Earhart's jobs.
Eventually, Amy had enough of moving and settled in Chicago with the children, while Edwin worked. Amelia graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916, having felt like an outsider throughout her time there. After graduation, Amelia attended a secondary education near Philadelphia in the fall of 1916. During a visit to Toronto where her sister was attending school, Amelia noticed soldiers returning from World War I with injuries and was inspired to begin courses with the Red Cross.
She left school and enrolled in the Voluntary Aid Detachment, becoming a nurse at the Spadina Military Hospital. It was not long after this that Amelia attended a stunt-flying exhibition at a Toronto Fair. She was buzzed by a pilot, meaning he flew very close overhead to give her a scare, but instead of being frightened, Amelia was fascinated. She gave medical school one more try in 1919 by attending Columbia University, but by 1920, she decided medicine wasn't for her.
In 1921, Amelia went to meet one of the few female aviators of the day, a woman named Netta Snook, out in California. Amelia asked for flying lessons, and Snook agreed. By July, Amelia had bought her first plane with money she had saved from working several jobs, a prototype two-seat Kinner Airster biplane in Bright Yellow, which she named the Canary. Snook advised against the plane, as it was not an easy plane for a beginner to fly.
Snook turned out to be right, as Amelia crashed it, not long after purchasing it. Deciding she needed more training, Amelia went to John Monty Montiho, a former World War I fighter pilot. From him, she learned to stunt flying, how to deal with any situation she might put herself and the plane into. She soon became a cautious and qualified pilot, and in October, she flew her repaired Canary to an altitude of 14,000 feet, or 4.3 kilometers, a women's world record height.
Unfortunately, in 1924, Amelia's parents divorced, and Amelia had to sell the Canary in order to afford a car for her move to Medford, a Boston suburb. There she lived with her mother and sister, and began work as a teacher and social worker for immigrants. She flew whenever she could, and in 1926 began demonstrating biplanes for the Kinner Airplane Company in exchange for permission to fly them whenever she wanted. At this time, flight was considered a risky endeavor.
The first powered flight vehicle we would recognize as an airplane was invented by the Wright brothers in the early 1900s, based on years of work by many other scientists, inventors, and engineers. The military began to include planes in their maneuvers almost as soon as they were invented, therefore technology for flight developed rather quickly. Still, the limits of aviation were still being explored at this time, as well as the viability for commercial use, like travel. In 1927, famous aviator Charles Lindberg was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, inspired by his flight, the Honorable Mrs.
Frederick Guest of London, and aviatrix in her own right, wanted to attempt the same flight. She purchased a tri-modered focker monoplane called the friendship, however her family begged her not to attempt the flight. She eventually gave in and hired a man to pilot and a man to navigate, Wilmer Stoltz and Lewis E. Gordon, but she wanted a female named as Captain and co-pilot, therefore guest hired George Palmer Putnam, a publicist to find a female pilot to represent all women in aviation for this flight.
When Putnam approached Amelia Earhart, she knew this would be a huge step for both aviation and for women, enough to jumpstart a career. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave her students, but eventually she agreed. Friendship left Newfoundland on June 17th, 1928 and arrived in Wales 20 hours and 40 minutes later, a feat of modern technology. However, Earhart had not done any of the piloting.
She said later that this was because most of the flight was through clouds and she had no experience relying on instrumentation alone. She also said that she felt like a sack of potatoes as a passenger. However, she was still the first woman to fly in a plane over the Atlantic. The public was immediately fascinated by Earhart.
She was celebrated as a hero in London and when she returned to New York, there was a parade for her. In Boston, she was given the keys to the city and was received at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge. With Putnam as her publicist, Earhart wrote about the flight in a book called 20 hours and 40 minutes and went on the lecture circuit to talk about the flight as well as promote women and aviation. She basically became the face of the new field of aviation.
The press nicknamed her Lady Lindy as she was a pilot and also resembled Charles Lindbergh. This was not a nickname that Earhart appreciated. Unsatisfied with being a passenger, Earhart bought a Lockheed Vega that had once been flown by Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and entered the first Women's Air Derby, an eight-day transcontinental air race from Los Angeles to Cleveland with many stops along the way. The race was nicknamed the Powderpuff Derby by the press.
Earhart was tied with her friend Ruth Nichols for first place during their last stopover in Columbus, Ohio. But when Nichols crashed during takeoff, Earhart went to her aid instead of taking off herself. She ended up finishing third. Earhart was on a roll.
Between 1930 and 1935, Earhart set eight women's aviation speed and distance records in a variety of aircraft. She was the first woman to fly solo nonstop from coast to coast and set a speed record on the same flight by doing it in 19 hours and five minutes in 1932. She then broke that record the next year. In May 1932, she piloted her first solo flight across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to London to Ireland.
She was supposed to land in Paris but a storm forced her to land in a pasture. This was the longest nonstop flight distance flown by women at the time and earned her another wave of media fascination. Afterward, she stated proudly that her flight proved that men and women were equal in jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness, and willpower. She also said that her flight hadn't really added anything to aviation but she hoped it meant something to women.
She became the first person to fly solo between Honolulu and Oakland, California in 1935 and the same year was the first person to pilot a civilian aircraft with a two-way radio. You heard that correctly. All of her previous flights and the flights of many other aviators had been done without two-way radios. Between flights, books, and appearances, Earhart and Putnam married in 1931.
Earhart joked that she said yes after Putnam had asked her about six times. Fun fact, in a letter to Putnam before their marriage, Earhart expressed that she was hesitant to marry at all, fearing that marriage would restrict her opportunities to work, which was her top priority. She also stipulated that, quote, on our life together, I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. It appears their relationship was an open one, quite an unheard of concept at the time.
It seems Earhart was ahead of her time in both her public and private life. In the autumn of 1935, Earhart accepted two visiting faculty positions at Purdue University, one as a technical advisor in the Department of Aeronautics and the other as a consultant in the Women's Career Department. It was during this time that she expressed her desire to fly around the world. While a flight around the northern part of the world had been completed by Wiley post in 1933, Earhart wanted to do it at the equator, a much longer distance, crossing much larger stretches of ocean.
Purdue and many other donors presented Earhart with a state-of-the-art Lockheed Model 10 E-electra on her 39th birthday, June 24, 1936. It was a fully metal plane with low wings, twin engines with 600 horsepower, extra fuel tanks to hold between 950 and 1,150 gallons of fuel. The cruising speed was 180 miles per hour, with a top speed of 200 miles per hour. With that fuel and speed capacity, it had a range of 4,000 miles.
The whole plane was worth around $80,000, which is about $1,456,000 in today's currency. With the Electra fully equipped, all Earhart needed was a navigator and a radio operator. She hired Harry Manning, a pilot and navigator with a good knowledge of radio transmission and Morse code, and Frederick Noonan, who had a long navigation career by both sea and sky and had worked for Pan-American Airlines. It seemed her plan to circumnavigate the world might become a reality.
Earhart knew the journey would be dangerous, but she never guessed it would end in her own mysterious disappearance. But before we talk about that flight and its unexpected, tragic end, let's pause for a word from our sponsors. Hello everyone, let me tell you about the Apple for the Teacher podcast. I'm Anna Thomas, a teacher and your host, so you're probably thinking it's about reading, writing and arithmetic, right?
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After the crash, Manning also left the endeavor, as he needed to get back to his regular job and family. The radio duties would therefore fall to Noonan and Airheart herself. During the repairs, Airheart planned a new route going east, including many stops to refuel and rest. Her second to last stop before making the final push back to Oakland, California would be Howland Island, a tiny speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Howland Island had been acquired by the US government in 1935 for weather observation and as an emergency landing site for the newly available commercial flights of Pan American Airlines. However, as it was quite near several groups of islands that were mandated to the Japanese, it's hypothesized that perhaps it was intended to observe more than weather. At the end of World War I, in which Japan had aided the British forces in the South Pacific, Japan had been given a mandate over most of the islands there, under the proviso that they demilitarized them. However, Japan adopted a policy of secrecy, refusing entry into the area by any foreign ships, including those of the US and Britain.
They also fortified many of the islands, which was against the terms of their mandate. This irked the US and was one more spark in the eventual fire that led to Japan siding with the Axis powers during World War II. Whatever the case, Earhart was cleared by the US government to stop at Howland Island. Earhart's second attempt at the world flight began May 21st without any fanfare or public announcement.
She flew the Electra from Oakland, California to Burbank, then Burbank to Miami. However, she had to land in Tucson, Arizona when her left engine caught fire mid-flight. After repairs, she flew to New Orleans and finally on to Miami, where she announced her second attempt to the press. She spent another week preparing the plane and making sure it was ready for the long journey.
On July 1st, around 6am, Earhart and Noonan took off for San Juan, the first of 21 international stops between Miami and Lay, Papua New Guinea. Only one of these stops was unplanned when Earhart landed in San Luis, Senegal. This landing was supposed to be at Dakar, but when Noonan had told Earhart to adjust her course south, she went with her gut instead of the instrumentation and turned north, missing their landing site by 163 miles. They'd had several problems with instrumentation, including the radio, which affected both communications and navigation.
On June 29th, Earhart and Noonan landed at Lay, after a 1,200-mile flight from Port Darwin, Australia. They were set to take off again on July 2nd for Howland Island, which was around 2,556 miles away and estimated to take around 18 to 19 hours of flying. They would cross the international date line, meaning they would arrive on Howland Island, the same date they had left Lay. The electorate's fuel tanks were filled, and Earhart and Noonan set off for the final and most difficult part of their journey.
Because Howland Island is a tiny dot in the vast Pacific Ocean, several US Navy ships were stationed along Earhart's route to help guide her with radio homing signals. The ships, Ontario, Swann, and Itasca were all equipped with a radio direction finder, or RDF, and radio transmitters and receivers so that they could speak to Earhart and track her position. I feel a brief explanation of radio frequency and RDF is needed at this point, but I want to preface this with the acknowledgement that I'm no radio communications expert. I researched this topic extensively, and I'll try my best to explain how 1930s radio communication worked, but it just didn't click with me, so if I get it wrong, please let me know so I can correct myself.
Radio signals are sent over different channels called frequencies, and for one person to receive a transmission from another, they must both be on the same frequency. The frequency 3105 kilohertz was the radio frequency used for aviation in the US, but it wasn't great for long distances. It didn't have to be overland, as there were many stations to communicate with during a flight. Over the ocean was a different playing field, however, therefore ships used lower frequencies that traveled further and were less likely to attenuate, or break up over long distances.
Before GPS, planes tracked their location using radio signals with a method called radio direction finding. The process used a loop antenna that rotated. At most angles, the loop had a fairly flat reception pattern, but when aligned perpendicular to a tuned radio frequency, the signal received on one side of the loop, cancelled out the signal on the other side, producing a sharp drop in reception, or null. By rotating the loop and looking for the angle of the null, the relative bearing of the broadcast station could be determined.
This provided a baseline direction of the signal, but the navigator still needed to know beforehand if the ship or plane was east or west of their loop in order to avoid plotting a course in the exact opposite direction. Also, the loop antenna could only pick up certain radio frequencies. These frequencies had to be strong, and the transmissions had to last for around three minutes for the operator to home in on them. RDF also required a special antenna to transmit the signals, and its accuracy was based to a degree on the size of that antenna.
The Electra had a loop antenna, as well as to other antenna in order to boost its broadcast signal. The ship Itasca's RDF and most nautical RDF were only able to function at 500 kHz, the frequency of standard nautical navigation, which the Electra's transmitter had been specifically modified to comply with. The Electra, however, could use RDF on several frequencies, including 3105 and possibly 7500, but this is not known for sure because there were several switches of equipment before Earhart took off from Miami. The Electra's RDF system hadn't worked during Earhart's landing in Port Darwin.
It was supposedly repaired before she took off for lay, but as you'll see, the repairs didn't seem to take. There was also a standard way of transmitting information. The Electra's call sign was KHA QQ, and in most standard radio transmissions, the transmitter announced their call sign and gave pertinent information about where they were, the weather, their speed, and their altitude. These check-ins were usually done on the hour, or if in doubt of position every few minutes to every half hour.
The longer the transmitter spoke, the more likely the receiver of the transmission could home in on their signal to get a bearing, or find their position with the RDF. Earhart was not a stickler for regular radio check-ins. When no one heard from her for four hours after take-off from Lay, no red flags were raised. She radioed at 2.18 PM Laytime that all was well, and that she wanted a weather report every hour.
Those reports were sent by the radio operators in Lay, but Earhart seldom responded to them. At 3.19 PM Laytime, Earhart reported her altitude as 10,000 feet, gave her position as 150.7 East and 73 South, and reported that all was well. At 5.18 Laytime, which is 7.18 AM GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, she gave her position as 159.7 East and 4.33 South, which is about one-third of the way to Holland Island, flying at 8,000 feet. She also reported that there was heavy cloud and a strong wind.
The ship Itasca started running their boilers in order to raise a dark smoke signal, a visible signal, to help Earhart locate Holland Island. At 6 PM Laytime, which was 8 AM GMT, Earhart signed off with the Lay radio operator and switched to her nighttime radio frequency, 3105 kilohertz. At 10.30 AM GMT, she reported her position as somewhere near Ocean Island, and that she had spotted Ontario. The ship Ontario had been trying to contact Earhart, but had not heard nor seen her.
We know, however, that Earhart spotted Ontario, because we have the ship's position and Earhart's report of seeing it. Therefore, she was still on course, despite apparent radio communication problems. Radio operators on Itasca at Howland Island were having trouble locating the Elektra using RDF. As I explained, their RDF only functioned on 500 kilohertz.
Earhart was transmitting on 3105 kilohertz, and even if she had been on 500, she never transmitted long enough for the operator to get a bearing on her position. Earhart's strange radio behavior is one of the things that many researchers point to as contributing to her disappearance. It's thought that either she and Noonan didn't know how to operate the radio correctly, or they were purposefully trying not to give away their position. More on this theory later.
At 512 AM Howland time, Earhart asked for a bearing on frequency 3105, whistling into the microphone so that Itasca could track her. The radio operators on Itasca responded, saying they couldn't get a bearing on that frequency, and to change to 500, but Earhart didn't respond for almost 63 minutes. When she finally transmitted again on 3105, she said she was 200 miles away and whistled again, hoping for a bearing. She was silent for another 31 minutes, despite Itasca asking her again to switch to 500 kilohertz and to transmit for longer.
At 646 AM Howland time, Earhart contacted Itasca again asking for a bearing, but saying they should respond in a half hour. She guessed she was 100 miles away. Again, Earhart didn't transmit long enough or on the right frequency. At this point in the journey, fuel would be running low.
The Electra had enough to make some course corrections and circle for a while above a landing strip, but not enough to get far should Earhart miss Howland completely. About an hour later, at 742 Howland time, Earhart transmitted again, saying she must be near Howland, but that she couldn't see it. She also said she had been unable to reach Itasca. She was flying low at around 1000 feet.
Itasca tried to contact Earhart on both 3105 and 500 kilohertz. Around 15 minutes later, Earhart transmitted again, saying she was circling, but couldn't see Howland. She also said she was switching to 7500 kilohertz, her daytime frequency. The signal strength of her transmission suggested she was quite close by.
Her voice seemed calm, not that of a pilot who was facing real trouble if they ran out of fuel over the ocean. Itasca tried to contact her on 7500 kilohertz, but there was no response. At 804 AM, Earhart contacted Itasca, saying she had received their transmission on 7500 kilohertz but was unable She asked for a bearing again and that they should answer on 3105 kilohertz with voice. Again, Itasca couldn't reach her and couldn't home in on her signal.
Something had to be wrong with the radio receiver in the Elektra. Itasca didn't hear from Earhart again until 844, 20 hours and 14 minutes since the Elektra left lay. On 3105 kilohertz with a very strong signal, she transmitted this message. We are on the line 157-337.
We'll repeat this message. We'll repeat this message on 6210 kilohertz. Wait listening on 6210 kilohertz. She paused for about a minute, then said, We are running online north and south.
Earhart and Noonan did not transmit again. The Elektra never landed on Howland Island. When nothing more than static was received by 9 AM, all hands were recalled to Itasca and the ship set out to search for any sign of a crash or emergency landing. They looked for wreckage, trails of fuel and emergency flares, but there was no sign of the plane and no more transmissions were heard.
Black storm clouds were noted to the north and west of the island, so these areas were searched in case Earhart had got lost in clouds. Still no trace was found. As soon as the situation was reported to the mainland, the US Navy sent ships and aircraft to search. The Elektra had been lost over a possible area of around 450,000 square miles.
The search was carried out by a battleship, four destroyers, a minesweeper, and an aircraft carrier with its full complement of 63 planes. Islands in all directions were combed and the sea between them scanned for anything that might suggest what had happened. A Japanese oceanographic vessel and a Japanese seaplane aided in the search as well. Around 4 million US dollars was spent on the effort.
It was the most costly and intensive search in US history at the time, yet no trace was ever found. Search efforts continued both officially through the government and privately funded by Putnam until July 19, 1937. The Phoenix Islands, the Christmas Islands, Fanning Island, Gilbert Island, and the Marshall Islands were all searched without success. 18 months after they had disappeared, on January 5, 1939, Amelia Earhart was officially declared dead.
The entire world was stunned. Putnam had pushed for this official declaration in order to become the trustee of Earhart's estate. With her money, he funded several more search efforts, but they all came to nothing. It was obvious that there were communication problems during the flight.
Earhart's radio operating procedure was either extremely erratic, or Itasca wasn't receiving all of her transmissions, and Earhart definitely could not hear Itasca's. This is likely due to the radio frequencies she was using. It seems she attempted to use her own RDF on the wrong frequency and was unable to home in on Itasca's signal and vice versa. The final line position she gave was also confusing, and many researchers disagree on what she meant by it as it wasn't a traditional coordinate to give one's position.
What we do know is that if radio communication had been properly established, Earhart would have been able to find Hal and it's a terrible shame that a technical problem between the two caused such a tragic loss. Some people blame Earhart, saying she was resistant to learning how to use new radio technology. Others blame Noonan for not learning how to use the RDF properly, and some blame the radio operators on Itasca for not explaining how their RDF system worked beforehand. Whoever was responsible, this communication breakdown was the main reason Earhart and Noonan were lost.
So what did happen to them? The most obvious and simple explanation is that the Electra ran out of fuel, crashed into the ocean, and sank. It's likely the Electra hit the water hard enough to break up on impact and was heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the ocean, around three and a quarter miles or five kilometers beneath the surface. The plane was also out of fuel, so it may not have left a trail of fuel on the surface for search parties to find.
However, as no wreckage has yet been found, this explanation is often rejected for more colorful theories. The next most likely explanation is the Castaway theory, which suggests that Earhart made an emergency landing on a nearby island. It would have likely been quite a messy landing on a reef or in the water. She and Noonan may have survived, leaving the plane to sink or be dragged out by the tide.
Without a radio, there was no way for them to call for help, and they likely died shortly after crash landing, due to injury, shock, or eventual starvation. The island, this theory is mostly associated with, is Nicu Mororo Island, which lies about 420 miles or 676 kilometers southeast of Holland Island. During the initial search, the shipwreck of the SS Norwich city, which occurred in 1929, was spotted on the reef around the island, as well as what appeared to be signs of recent habitation. But when planes repeatedly buzzed over the island, no one appeared to wave them down.
It was later revealed that the island had been uninhabited for around 45 years. Faint radio signals were also received from somewhere close by, for a few days after the crash, but no clear message was ever heard, nor an exact origin for the signal found. In 1938, British surveyors looking to build an airfield and settle found around 13 bones on the island, mostly long bones such as those of the limbs and part of a skull. Due to a lack of fresh water, the settlement failed, but the bones were brought to Fiji to be analyzed by Dr.
D.W. Hoodless. According to Dr. Hoodless, who published his report in 1941, the bones had likely been exposed on the island for around four years.
He estimated they belonged to a short, stocky European male, not more than 5'5". The bones were subsequently lost, but the measurements were published, and have been re-analyzed and compared over the years by many researchers. It seems that every study goes back and forth declaring the bones as belonging to a male or a female. Sex is difficult to determine even with a full skeleton, but near impossible without a pelvis or a complete skull, but as researchers cannot seem to accept indeterminate sex as an answer, it's likely these measurements will continue to be re-evaluated.
Other items have also been found on the Kumoro island that suggest to some that Airhart may have ended up there. These items were recovered by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery or Tiger, which excavated the island in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. A list of these items can be found on Tiger's website. While they hope to find Airhart and Noonan, Tiger has admitted that there isn't enough evidence to link any of the items directly to Airhart.
Without any evidence at all, as to what happens to Airhart and Noonan, many more far-fetched theories have also been suggested. I won't go into all of them, but two of them seemed more plausible than the rest, despite a lack of evidence. A hypothesis that was popular at the time due to the rising tensions between the US and Japan was that the Electra was either shot down or landed in a Japanese-controlled area. If the plane was captured, the theory goes that Airhart and Noonan were likely killed by the Japanese.
The Marshall Islands and Saipan have both been indicated as locations where this could have occurred, assuming Airhart intentionally went the wrong way or was blown far off course. One of the supposed eyewitnesses of Airhart's capture claimed to have seen her in Saipan, but no hard evidence has yet been found to prove these reports. Another hypothesis that often goes hand in hand with the Japanese capture theory is that Airhart and Noonan were actually spies and purposefully disappeared into Japanese territory in order to gain information or deliver something to another spy. Airhart's mother subscribed to this theory, again, despite a lack of evidence.
At the end of World War II, the US Navy released a statement that Airhart had not been on a secret mission and had not been shot down or captured by the Japanese. The search for Amelia Airhart continues to this day. In August of 2019, Robert Ballard, the deep-sea explorer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic and Allison Fundus of the Ocean Exploration Trust, both in cooperation with National Geographic, began their well-publicized and extensive search on the Kumoro island. Ballard's theory was that the plane landed on the reef, Noonan died instantly, and Airhart survived on the island for several weeks, but eventually died due to a lack of fresh water.
He also believed that the body was never found because the giant coconut crabs that inhabit the island consumed her remains and then scattered the bones. However, after Ballard scanned 100% of the ocean floor all around the island, and archaeologists surveyed the entire landmass no evidence of either the plane or Airhart was found. It's possible National Geographic scientist Frederick Heiberd located the skull found in 1938 during this endeavor at a museum in Taurara, Kiribati. His assessment of the skull in the museum estimates that it belonged to an adult female, but there's nothing to say that that adult female was Amelia Airhart.
Amelia Airhart was a pioneer and a celebrity of her day, the public was fascinated by her while she was alive, and after she mysteriously disappeared, that fascination only grew. While much of her story has become legend, the fact is that a simple radio frequency switch might have changed how her story ended. However, we will never know for sure, and we may never find any evidence of what happened. That is why Amelia Airhart and her disappearance spark our curiosity.
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