The search for the world famous pilot Amelia Earhart concentrated on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Archaeologists have managed to find objects that may contain traces of the DNA of a brave woman
Researchers have found objects that may allow them to lift the veil of secrecy over the mysterious disappearance of the famous pilot Amelia Earhart (1897-1937). Scientists searched for traces of the death of aviators on a small island in the South Pacific Ocean and found three pieces from a pocket knife and fragments of an object that they identified as fragments of a cosmetic mirror. The find could serve as proof that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed and eventually died on the uninhabited tropical island of Nikumaroro, which today belongs to the Republic of Kiribati. The island is located about 480 km southeast of the final destination of the pilots - Howland Island.
"There may be DNA samples on the items," hopes Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).
A trip around the world led to a desert island
The Gillespie team will continue their search on the deserted islet until June 14, 2010. They hope to find the remains of the twin-engined aircraft Earhart Electra, which, in their opinion, did not crash into the sea and sank, as was officially announced after a large-scale but futile search organized after the disappearance of the aviators on July 2, 1937.
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan flew over the Pacific in an attempt to set a new world record. They were going to fly around the Earth along the equator. However, they did not succeed in completing the grandiose enterprise. In a recent radio broadcast, Earhart reported that the plane was running low on fuel.
According to Gillespie, the latest scientific advances are making it possible to extract DNA samples from objects that a person has touched. The technique can be decisive in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the death of the pilots. “If scientists from the laboratory with which we cooperate establish that the DNA from the discovered objects belongs to Earhart, then we will finally have convincing evidence that the last days Amelia and Fred spent on the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro,” Gillespie said.
The Nikumaroro Island Expedition is TIGHAR's tenth attempt to find traces of Earhart. Since 1989, researchers have found many items that indicate that the island was once actually home to the shipwrecked.
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The remains of the pilots were eaten by crabs?
This time, the scientists decided to thoroughly study the southeastern part of the island, which is called the Sevn Site. The area is densely overgrown with Scaevola frutescens. Somewhere here in 1940, British colonial officer Gerald Gallagher found a partially preserved skeleton of one of the shipwrecked. A court report has survived, which describes the remains. Then experts came to the conclusion that the skeleton belonged to a white woman 1.7 m tall. The data coincide with the parameters of Amelia Earhart. However, the skeleton itself is lost, so it is impossible to conduct DNA analysis on it.
Gillespie believes that some of the bones may have been taken away by large coconut crabs, which indicates the sad end of Amelia Earhart. In 1940, Gallagher did not find the spine, ribs, part of the pelvic bones, one arm, and the lower part of one of the legs. Perhaps the bones are still lying on the island somewhere in the bush.
Taphonomy is a
branch of paleontology that studies the formation of posthumous accumulations of organisms and the processes of fossilization, the transformation of the remains of animals and plants into fossils.
To confirm this theory, the researchers conducted something like an investigative experiment. “In 2007, we conducted a taphonomic experiment - we left a dead pig on the island in order to understand how quickly the crabs will eat the remains of the animal and how far they will carry the bones. And then we realized that this was happening quite quickly, and the bones were at a decent distance from each other. This time we are again going to return to the place where the pig lay, and see what is left there in the end. Three years have passed since our experiment, and Gallagher also found bones three years after Amelia disappeared,”said Patricia Thrasher, head of TIGHAR. True, in the Gallagher report it is written that the bones looked like they were much more than three years old - gray, corroded and dried. This report item can also be checked for pig carcasses.
Desert Island Mysteries
In addition to finding bones that Gallagher did not find, scientists have other goals. Previously, they found traces of a circle of fire, which raised many questions. Why did the shipwrecked create this ring of fire? To protect yourself from crabs at night? Or were they trying to signal the rescuers in this way?
Other questions are related to a pocket knife and a mirror. It is possible that words or numbers were once engraved on a cosmetic mirror, but they cannot be read in the field. “Nevertheless, these are very important findings. For example, in the case of a pocket knife: we found some fragments in 2007, and now we have new pieces. Apparently, the knife was deliberately broken,”said Thrasher. But why exactly is unclear. Perhaps people were trying to make fishhooks out of it, or maybe they needed a tool to open clams.
Among other things, scientists are going to conduct underwater research. Perhaps, somewhere along the coastline of the island rests the plane "Electra".