Where's Amelia?

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/05/amelia-earhart-plane-update.html.
Another expedition has landed on Nikumaroro, formerly Gardner Island. The atoll in Kiribati has long been a focus of investigation into the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan, see background link above. A previous landing found some modern items like a woman's shoe, a zip and a sextant. Some bones were found that were never identified and could have come from anybody, seeing at the island used to have a transient population. This new team landed on the now uninhabited island last week to focus on the "Taraia object". This was something spotted on Google Earth in 2020 that pundits thought might be the wreckage of Amelia's Lockheed Electra aeroplane. It was lying on the seabed inside the lagoon in quite shallow water near the beach. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmq5n8x106jdo. The investigators from Purdue University and the Archaeological Legacy Institute proceeded with caution, not wanting to get their hopes up. As you can see in the background link, in May last year there was a false lead and disappointment. Regrettably the Taraia object has turned out to be a collection of fallen trees. I actually think it's unlikely Amelia landed on the island. We know that even in the initial search, the US Coast Guard considered this a possibility and overflew Nikumaroro carefully. They saw no aircraft debris or any people there. I'm sure Amelia or Fred would have come out into the open and made themselves known had they seen the plane flying overhead. That being said however, the absence of physical evidence or bodies does not rule out the theory completely. Had Amelia and Fred died on the island their corpses would not have lasted long. The resident coconut crabs are known to be very aggressive. They're sometimes called "robber crabs" because they will literally snatch food out of a person's hand. They are large land crabs which regularly hunt small rodents and birds, but will feed off larger prey if they are dead. So will we ever find Amelia Earhart? Possibly, but it's a long shot. Her plane, most likely with her and Fred inside it, is likely to be on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Finding anything down there is very difficult indeed. Like with MH370, a similar more recent loss, somebody will give it a try, I have no doubt. I wish them luck. I cover this subject in more details in the latest episode of Third Rail Radio, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/10/third-rail-radio-programme-257.html.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2024/05/mh370-portal.html.