National Geographic History - July 2019

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 13

Others, like the International Group
for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR),
believe the plane flew south toward the
Phoenix Islands and landed on a reef on
Nikumaroro (then Gardner) Island, where
they lived as castaways for days or weeks.
TIGHAR has sent several expeditions
to the island, where they discovered the
remnants of a campsite and various arti-
facts. Called the “Seven Site,” it matched
the description of a location where 13
human bones were found in 1940, when
Nikumaroro was under British control.
The bones were sent to Fiji, where two
doctors examined them and found that
they belonged to a male. The collected
bones were subsequently lost, but the
report survived.
Most recently, in July 2017, TIGHAR
and the National Geographic Society sent
four forensic sniffing dogs and an archae-
ological team to Nikumaroro to see if any

bones remained. Specially trained, the

dogs alert to the scent of human decom-

position. Within moments of arriving at

the Seven Site, the dogs—which have a

higher success rate than radar—alerted,

but the team did not unearth any spec-

imens. They gathered soil samples from

the area to analyze for human DNA.

New studies on the 13 bones found in

1940 may still help bolster the castaway

theory. In 2018, forensic analysis suggest-

ed the opposite of the Fiji doctors’ con-

clusion: The bones were from a female

skeleton, one of similar height and body

type to Earhart. Forensic anthropologist

Richard Jantz used photographs and ar-

ticles of Earhart’s clothing to analyze the

bones’ measurements. The evidence, he

asserts, “strongly supports the conclu-

sion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged

to Amelia Earhart” or that “they are from

someone very similar to her.”

Also in 2018, TIGHAR published a paper

analyzing radio signals from the night Ear-

hart disappeared. In July 1939 several radio

listeners from as far away as St. Petersburg,

Florida, and Toronto, Canada, reported

hearing a woman’s distress calls; TIGHAR

believes the voice was Earhart’s, and their

paper explains how it could be possible for

her transmissions to have traveled so far.

Earhart quipped that her round-the-

world flight was “just for fun,” but the

quest to understand Earhart’s fate has

been a serious work in progress for more

than 80 years. The first time Earhart flew,

a 10-minute ascent with World War I pilot

Frank Hawks, she made a life-changing

decision. “By the time I had got two or

three hundred feet off the ground, I knew

I had to fly,” she would later recall. Today,

researchers remain as determined to solve

her disappearance as Earhart was to fly.

—Alec Forssmann

FUSELAGE: AP IMAGES/GTRES. ZIPPER AND KNIFE: TIGHAR. JAR: TIGHAR /GETTY IMAGES

Was Earhart

a Castaway?

SINCE 1989, the International Group for Historic Aircraft

Recovery (TIGHAR) has launched 12 expeditions on

Nikumaroro Island, a remote atoll in the Pacific. They have

uncovered various objects dating to the 1930s that they

believe could have belonged to Earhart and Noonan.

Section of repaired fuselage that

TIGHAR believes could have

come from the Electra

Zipper pull that

could have been from

a jacket or pants

Pocket knife

that would have

been useful for a

castaway

Glass jar believed

to have held

freckle cream