My mom asked me to check into something she heard on TV, she said she caught the tail end of some cable “news” show that claimed that Amelia Earhart’s plane had been located on the sea floor with sonar. Supposedly this was the same group of people who located the Titanic. But then, my mom watches the crappiest shows…
I promised her I’d look around the internet, but I can’t find a thing. She’s an Amelia fanatic (she used to run a restaurant called Amelia’s, she still has a 6 foot model of Amelia’s plane). It would make an old lady happy if someone could hunt down some leads, even if it’s a false lead. My mom takes much pleasure from hearing crackpot Amelia theories.
Could try checking out http://www.insightmag.com/archive/200002054.shtml for some recent info.
Thanks, that looks like the stuff I was looking for. Hard to tell though, she only heard the tail end of the story, and I only heard it secondhand from her. Maybe the story needs to be updated, my mom said they claimed to have located the wreck on the sea bottom. But if that was really true, this would be front page headlines, so maybe she misunderstood the story.
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery may be the group you’re thinking of. Previous expeditions to the island of Nikumaroro have provided some tantalizing but inconclusive evidence that Earhart and Noonan just might possibly have landed and died there.
Updating this zombie thread of only 13 years ago The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has again announced important results:
Aren’t Dopers excited about this news? Or does no one care about the fate of Amelia Earhart anymore?
It might help if TIGHAR didn’t have one of the worst web sites I’ve seen in a long time - the kind you find now, abandoned for ten years, still looking like 2004 and with half the links broken.
Almost free of useful content and that badly organized. No “news” or update section that I can find. Just Geocities-era clip art and template design. Bleah.
At this point I just kinda go “oh, they found her again, did they? Where was she this time?” and I move on to something more interesting.
Give me something more definitive and I might get excited.
But where’s Waldo?
TIGHAR is trying to drum up funds for another expedition. To do that they need to convince backers they are on to something. If the photos in this story are the best they can do to convince the world the patch is from Amelia’s plane, colour me unconvinced.
They found the patch in 1991…
This popped into the news today. I did a little reading around because it was interesting, but the founder of this TIGHAR group has been described as a great showman, but low on evidence.
It’s tantalizing they found a woman’s compact among other things, but isn’t there still the problem that the Electra simply didn’t have enough fuel to make it as far as the island of Nikumaroro?
They say there is evidence someone was eating birds and fish at the campsite in the southeast end of the island but crabs would have carried away any human remains. Well, why would there be any bird or fish remains then?
It sure would be nice if someone found the human remains that were taken to Fiji and lost.
Word.
But, NEWSFLASH: A member of the Mafia just admitted to knowing where Jimmy Hoffa is buried…hold your breath for updates.
So, why hasn’t this outfit found MH370 yet?
Per Skeptoid, the group talking up this “discovery” doesn’t really seem that interested in any alternative explanations for their ‘findings’;
Give them another 77 years…
I care. My aunt (wife of my Moms brother) is Amelia’s niece. Her maiden name is Earhart and the resemblance is irrefutable.
But, like others, I’m desensitized to such faux news.
My reaction is the same it always is: These guys are still at it?
Gillespie believes what he wants to believe, no doubts or conflicting facts or alternative hypotheses permitted. His desired conclusion depends on pretending the island was never even visited by humans other than Earhart and Noonan until his group arrived.
OMG how big are the crabs on that island??!
Pretty big. (Physicist for scale.)
I’d like a pet coconut crab!
First, let me say that I would like Earhart’s airplane to be found. Second, I’m glad someone is out there looking for it. Third, I am not taking a stand on whether the ‘new’ evidence is conclusive.
Per Skeptoid is basically saying, ‘Since TIGHAR doesn’t consider alternative theories regarding campsites, and did not “exclude the pearl divers who are known to have camped there”, they have not considered alternatives for this “patch” that they’ve found.’
Maybe TIGHAR did, and maybe they didn’t. A quick look at google images shows that most Electras had more than one window on each side. Images of Earhart’s plane in Miami do show a ‘patch’ where one window should be. TIGHAR says, ‘Its complex fingerprint of dimensions, proportions, materials and rivet patterns was as unique to Earhart’s Electra as a fingerprint is to an individual.’ If the patch is to blank out a window, and if most other Electras had a window in that position, the patch’s dimensions and proportions would not be ‘unique’ – at least, IMO, not unique enough to be identified from an old photograph. The materials would not have been unique either. It’s an aluminum alloy. Rivets would probably have used existing holes, so I doubt they would be sufficiently different between planes with the same alteration.
The artifact does seem to be from an Electra, if TIGHAR’s research is correct. We know that Earhart and Noonan were flying in that part of the world. It’s plausible that the artifact is from their aircraft. But how many Electras had that modification? Lockheed built 149 of them, plus a couple of variants. Between Australia and New Zealand, there were eight airlines flying them – and Nikumaroro Island is nicely between Australia and Hawaii. Of Electras known to have been flying in the area in 1937, how many of them crashed; and how many simply vanished? Did any have the ‘patch’ that was discovered? If so, could the artifact have been taken to Nikumaroro Island or thereabouts by pearl divers or fishermen?
As Per Skeptoid says, TIGHAR can be sloppy, failing to exclude alternatives. But right now I don’t think the ‘patch’ can be excluded.