Amelia Earhart Researchers' Nikumaroro Expedition Yields No Results

The US exploration team that traveled to the remote Nikumaroro island in the Pacific to solve the mystery of pioneer pilot Amelia Earhart announced that the object they thought was plane wreckage was actually a pile of trees washed ashore.

Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in 1937 while attempting a round-the-world flight. While this incident triggered one of the largest air and sea searches in history, the Nikumaroro atoll in the Kiribati archipelago stood out as one of the possible locations where the plane may have crashed. During previous visits, findings such as camp traces, a 1930s women's shoe, and a cosmetic cream jar had been discovered.

The latest expedition was organized following a white object spotted in shallow waters off the Taraia Peninsula in 2020 satellite imagery. After experiencing a difficult process due to bad weather conditions and giant coconut crabs, the 17-member team searched the island with metal detectors for four days. Purdue University confirmed that the visual anomaly most likely consisted of large trees accumulated on the beach shore and that the glare was due to its carbonate coating.