Searchers have spent 26 years and made 10 expeditions to investigate the mystery surrounding Earhart’s disappearance. But the solution may have been found by a small piece of metal. In 1991, a group of researchers investigating the disappearance of Amelia Earhart found a sheet of aluminum on the island of Nikumaroro in the Western Pacific. Earhart’s plane, a Model 10 Electra, mysteriously vanished near the island on July 2, 1937. This piece of metal, a sheet 19 inches by 23 inches and made of the same material as Earhart’s plane, looked like it could be the first piece of the aircraft ever found.
The problem was its odd shape and size, which didn’t seem to fit any part of the Electra.
The team then looked at every other kind of plane that could’ve flown over the Pacific at that time. But, again, nothing fit.
The team further analyzed the old photo and turned to a restored Electra to see how such a piece of metal would have been attached. After closer examination, they realized that the sheet perfectly matched in size, shape, and patterns of rivet holes. Even tears along the edges of the sheet aligned with where rivets would’ve been. They believe it is a match.
Like LOST itself, there are many theories about the fate of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Some say Earhart was captured by the Japanese or that she found her way back to the US and lived out her life as a New Jersey housewife, Gillespie said. His team’s hypothesis is that Earhart and Noonan were trying to find Howland Island, but after failing to do so, they landed on a reef extending out from Nikumororo, also known as Gardner Island. For days, the pair sent out distress calls from the aircraft’s radio, but the rising tides soon pushed the plane over the edge of the reef and into the ocean. The search team thinks Earhart and Noonan survived for a while on the island as castaways.
