What Happened To Amelia Earhart? New Study Claims Skeletal Remains Belonged To Lost Pilot

Since famed aviator Amelia Earhart’s mysterious disappearance in 1937, there have been more theories about her fate than actual sources of information to back them up. A new study published in the scientific journal Forensic Anthropology presented a modernized take on human bones found in 1940 that concluded it is more likely than not that the bones belonged to Earhart, Phys.org reported.

University of Tennessee anthropology professor Richard Jantz wrote the article to question the findings of Dr. D.W. Hoodless. In 1940, the skeletal remains in question were found on Nikumaroro Island in the Pacific Ocean, which Hoodless said in the same year could not be Earhart’s because they belonged to a man. The bones were found three years after Earhart and Noonan left on their journey to circumnavigate the globe by air.

However, Jantz argued that methods of determining sex in skeletons were inadequate when Hoodless came to that conclusion. Jantz re-examined the bone measurements and found that the Nikumaroro remains were closer to Earhart’s measurements than 99 percent of people in a “large reference sample.”

Due to these findings, Jantz said “the most convincing argument” is that the bones belonged to Earhart. If that were the case, it would fit into a popular theory that Earhart and Noonan may have made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro, then known as Gardner Island. Artifacts, such as a woman’s shoe from the 1930s and Plexiglas similar to that on Earhart’s airplane, were also found on the island.

Despite her disappearance more than 80 years ago, there are still plenty of theories and passionate people to support them. Some of them are relatively simple and believable, such as the Nikumaroro theory or the idea that her plane simply crashed into the Pacific Ocean, never to be found. Others, like the idea that she survived and lived as a businesswoman in New Jersey, are more far-fetched.

There was mild excitement in 2017 when a photo emerged that purported to show Earhart alive in the Marshall Islands after the date of her disappearance. However, the photo turned out to have been published in 1935, two years before she began her final voyage.