The decades-old mystery over the disappearance of Amelia Earhart has been cracked with 99% certainty, according to a top scientist probing the case.
The famous aviator disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean during an attempted round-the-world flight in 1937.
Earhart, her plane and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were never found, and the mystery of what happened to them continues to fascinate to this day.
But now an expert on skeletal biology, Richard Jantz of the University of Tennessee in the US city of Knoxville, believes he has cracked the case – claiming bones found on a Pacific island are ‘99% likely’ to be hers.
In 1940, bones were discovered on Gardner Island – now called Nikumaroro – 400 miles south of Earhart’s planned stopover on Howland Island.
The decades-old mystery of Amelia Earhart (pictured in 1936, a year before she vanaished) has been cracked with 99% certainty, according to a top scientist probing the case
In 1940, bones were discovered on Gardner Island – now called Nikumaroro (pictured) – 400 miles south of Earhart’s planned stopover on Howland Island. An expert on skeletal biology now believes the bones are ‘99% likely’ to be Earhart’s
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has been investigating the theory that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro – now part of Kiribati – since the 1980s and has found a pocket knife (left alongside a completed version) which it says is of the same type inventoried aboard Earhart’s plane
They were then sent for analysis in British Fiji, where Dr David Winn Hoodless took measurements before the bones were lost.
Now, using those measurements, Dr Jantz has compared the bones to the probable dimensions of Earhart’s and reached a remarkable conclusion.
‘What I can say scientifically is that they are 99% likely to be her,’ he said.
Dr Jantz estimated the dimensions of comparable bones in Earhart’s body by analysing photos where she appeared alongside objects which can still be measured today.
‘We had the lengths of three bones that Hoodless reported lengths for,’ said the doctor.
‘Then we realised there were some ways we could get more information about Amelia Earhart’s dimensions that could be compared directly to the bones.
Among the artifacts found on the island is a glass bottle containing traces of mercury. Its design matches that of bottles of Dr CH Berry’s freckle ointment – a brand from the 1930s containing mercury
Earhart (left), her plane and her navigator, Fred Noonan (right), were never found, and the mystery of what happened to them continues to fascinate to this day
‘We were able to measure her humerus length and her radius length from a photo that had a scaleable object in it.
‘Then we also had her a good estimate of her tibia length which we got from her trouser inseam length and from her height.
‘We were able to compare the three bone lengths from Nikumaroro island to Amelia Earhart.
‘The result is that they are very similar and it’s unlikely that just a random person would be that similar.’
An analysis comparing the Nikumaroro bones to those of 2,776 other people found only 17 people with dimensions more similar than Earhart – just two of them women.
‘If her position had been in the middle of that distribution, there is no way I could have concluded that it was her,’ said Dr Jantz.
‘The fact that she is not the closest one is not disqualifying at all, because there are going to be measurement errors on my part from estimating her dimensions, and it could be that Hoodless also made some errors.
‘Just a random person would have a very low probability of being that similar to the Nikumaroro bones.’
The famous aviator disappeared somewhere over the Pacific Ocean during an attempted round-the-world flight in 1937
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has been investigating the theory that Earhart landed on Nikumaroro – now part of Kiribati – since the 1980s.
Richard Gillespie, its executive director, claims the group has found other artifacts on the island supporting the theory that Earhart crashed there, lived as a castaway and died.
He said: ‘We have been doing this for 29 years now and we have built such a huge body of evidence that supports this hypothesis that Earhart landed and died on this island.
‘There are many, many different threads of evidence that all reach the same conclusion and there’s really no evidence that something else happened.
‘We’ve found artifacts on the island that speak of an American woman of the 1930s and there’s no other explanation for how they got there.’
Among the artifacts is a glass bottle containing traces of mercury. Its design matches that of bottles of Dr CH Berry’s freckle ointment – a brand from the 1930s containing mercury.
Mr Gillespie said: ‘We don’t know that she used this freckle cream but Earhart had freckles and she didn’t like her freckles.
THE THEORIES ON AMELIA EARHART’S FINAL RESTING PLACE
Theory One: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan crash into the Pacific a few miles short of their intended destination due to visibility and gas problems, and die instantly.
Theory Two: Earhart and Noonan crash land on the island of Nikumaroro, where they later die at the hands of coconut crabs, which hunt for food at night and grow up to three-feet long. The name comes from their ability to opened the hardened shells of coconuts.
Theory Three: Earhart and Noonan veer drastically off course and crash land near the Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. They are rescued but soon taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese and sent to a camp in Saipan. Noonan is beheaded and Earhart dies in 1939 from malaria or dysentery.
Theory Four: Earhart and Noonan make it to Howland Island as planned and are eaten by cannibals.
Theory Five: Earhart was an American spy sent to gather information on the Japanese ahead of World War II.
‘And here on this island is this bottle that once contained this stuff and there’s no other explanation for why it would be there.’
TIGHAR has also found a pocket knife which it says is of the same type inventoried aboard Earhart’s plane.
‘We know she had a knife like this,’ said Mr Gillespie. ‘It’s broken and pounded apart – probably with just a rock – to get the blades out.
‘If you’re a castaway and you need to make a spear, you might need the blades and can’t use them without getting them out.
‘It makes sense, it’s castaway behaviour.’
Mr Gillespie believes Earhart survived on the island for some weeks, even months, before passing away.
‘She may have died of thirst, she may have starved to death,’ he said.
‘It’s possible to get into a situation where you’re spending more calories to get the food than the food provides.
‘It’s also a coral atoll and if you fall on the coral – which is very easy to do – you can get an infection and if you don’t have access to antibiotics you’re eventually going to die of blood poisoning.’