Posted on 06/07/2010 3:05:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
New artifacts found on an uninhabited South Pacific island may help reveal how Amelia Earhart spent her final days.
Researchers found three pieces of a pocket knife and shards of what appeared to be a broken cosmetic glass jar on Nikumaroro, an island about 300 miles southeast of Howland Island, Earhart’s intended destination on her final, ill-fated flight.
The findings may help bolster the researchers' theory that the famed female pilot and navigator Fred Noonan died on the island as castaways, Discovery News reports.
"These objects have the potential to yield DNA, specifically what is known as 'touch DNA'," Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (THIGAR), told Discovery News via e-mail.
"If DNA from the recovered objects matches the Earhart reference sample now held by the DNA lab we've been working with, we'll have what most people would consider to be conclusive evidence that Amelia Earhart spent her last days on Nikumaroro," he said.
Earhart disappeared while attempting to fly around the world at the equator in 1937, reporting in her final radio transmission that her plane was running low on fuel.
The presence of the pocket knife pieces intrigued TIGHAR researchers, and may shed some light into how the castaways tried to survive on the island.
"In the case of the knife, we found part of it in 2007 and have now found more. The artifacts tell a story of an ordinary pocket knife that was beaten apart to detach the blades for some reason," TIGHAR president Patricia Thrasher told Discovery News.
The team will explore Nikumaroro and the surrounding waters until June 14 in an effort to find more clues. They will concentrate specifically on the southeast end of the island, where the partial skeleton of a castaway was discovered in 1940.
Forensic files have indicated that the bones belonged to a 5' 7" white female of northern European descent, which matches Earhart's stature.
After Earhart’s plane disappeared in 1937, a large search was conducted throughout the Pacific Ocean, but it was concluded at the time that her plane crashed in the ocean and sank.:
Would seem to be a lot easier to do DNA on the SKELETON.
World class scientist, "I hadn't thought of that! Grand idea!"
Fred Noonan as navigator on the flight got lost in the vastness of the South Pacific ... easy enough to do in 1937.
He was reputed to be one of the best at the time ...
interesting...
we need a map
Longer article with more details:
Pecked to death by flocks of hungry little crabs — not a nice way to die.
I read a very detailed book about the entire flight. And the many flights leading up to it. Heavily documented. They were to be guided into Howland Island using both a voice radio as a beacon and a morse-code type beacon. (It’s been awhile since I read the book - but it was something like that).
Earhart had two different receivers for the signals that she would switch between. And she was to search for one on the hour and half-hour, and the other on the quarter hours.
The book had documentation for a variety of items where things may have gone wrong. There may have been some confusion on the labels on her switch. Fog, sunlight in her eyes, etc. There was a problem with the island’s radio transmitter so they used a Navy ship achored off the island.
Seems the island had one time, and the Navy ship was running on Hawaii time - something like 1 1/4 hours different. It is the 1/4 that messed things up. They were transmitting the wrong signal when Earhart would have been listening for the other type!
One of the things that came about from the gov’t investigation of Earhart’s missing was creating Greenwich Mean Time as a standard.
What are they like steamed and dipped in butter?
“Tighar’s” theory has been that Earhart’s navigator, Fred Noonan, realizing that they had overshot their destination, had her turn in a southerly direction, hoping to come across a group of islands. It is important to realize that these islands are on the Equator with daytime highs of 120 degrees and no water unless it rains. Gilligan’s island, this ain’t!
They believe that the aircraft crash-landed on the reef, then carried off into deeper water by wave action and that Earhart and Noonan perished of thirst on the island.
Apparently, they are edible.
Nasty way to die, although I think dehydration would get you before the crabs did.
If she was injured and dehydrated, I can imagine that crabs that size might have been the final blow. How awful.
self ping
Surprised to learn she had a 'fling' with Gore Vidal's father...(if true)
Incredibly interesting stuff..
why does she not strike me as somebody that would bring cosmetics along, when she could be carrying that little bit more gas...
Man what a creature. Pretty much the opposite of cute.
‘Course you don’t have to be cute to be delicious.
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