# Amelia Earhart's plane found on the sea floor?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 20, 2001, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693 "2001-03-20T08:54:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/201 "2025-10-03T21:38:14Z")
[An expedition will go in November to investigate object seen in lagoon](https://knewz.com/world/expedition-heads-to-pacific-in-search-of-amelia-earharts-long-lost-plane-after-spotting-a-new-clue/)
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/202 "2025-10-03T22:00:04Z")
Interesting but smells fishy to me. I’d be very surprised if anything came of this.
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### Author:  [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/203 "2025-10-03T22:04:32Z")
Thy will not, of course find anything other than perhaps some downed trees that long ago were washed or blown into the lagoon.
However, what they will do is report that they couldn’t do a thorough investigation because of lack of time/running out of money/bad weather/Bob getting seasick on Tuesday so they’ll need even _more_ money to do _another_ trip to Nikumaroro soon. They’ll pull up a Google Earth image of the island, point to random shadow somewhere in the lagoon or on the reef, and claim that _this_ is certain proof of Earhart’s plane.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/204 "2025-10-03T22:05:04Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> Interesting but smells fishy to me.
Not surprising after all this time under water.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/205 "2025-10-03T22:29:20Z")
She’s in Davy Jones’s locker! Enough already, let the woman rest in peace.
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### Author:  [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/206 "2025-10-04T02:09:00Z")
Are you saying The Monkees are hiding Earhart?
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/207 "2025-10-04T02:10:52Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> She’s in Davy Jones’s locker! Enough already, let the woman rest in peace.
Maybe we should redirect our efforts to Oak Island?
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/208 "2025-10-04T02:34:44Z")
Or the Nazi gold train hidden in Poland? Maybe Earhart is down in that mystery tunnel.
We have yet to completely disprove the intriguing theory of [the Bolamites](https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/irene-bolam-and-the-decline-of-the-amelia-earhart-society-part-i-of-iv/), or quelled Fortean Society claims that Earhart and Noonan were victims of Dogmatic Science.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/209 "2025-10-04T20:03:09Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#):
>
> Interesting but smells fishy to me. I’d be very surprised if anything came of this.
It is very likely some sort of plane, but that doesnt mean it is THE plane..
The navy flew over that island, and the Brits landed and investigated in 1937.
TIGHAR made several expeditions there already.
> **[Nikumaroro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikumaroro)**
>
> Nikumaroro, previously known as Kemins Island or Gardner Island, is a part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon. Nikumaroro is about 7.5 km (4.7 mi) long by 2.5 km (1.6 mi) wide. Although occupied at various times during the past, the island is uninhabited today.
> Kiribati declared the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2006, with the park being expanded in 2008....
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### Author:  [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/210 "2025-10-04T20:11:41Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> The navy flew over that island, and the Brits landed and investigated in 1937.
More than that. There was a settlement and a USCG LORAN station – about 25 Americans and another ~75 British settlers – on the island for nearly three decades before being abandoned in the mid-60’s.
If Earhart’s Electra was/is on the island and readily visible from the air as TIGHAR believes it to be it almost assuredly would’ve been found long ago.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/211 "2025-10-04T20:50:32Z")
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> Maybe we should redirect our efforts to Oak Island?
Nah, the beaches aren’t nearly as nice on Oak Island, and it’s cold there.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2025, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/212 "2025-10-04T23:50:07Z")
She is hiding in the Amber Room.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/213 "2025-10-05T00:14:32Z")
Sigh. I keep reading the title as: “Amelia Earhart’s phone found on the sea floor?”
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### Author:  [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/214 "2025-10-05T00:16:07Z")
It’s only slightly less plausible at this point.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/215 "2025-10-05T02:36:34Z")
> [@Lancia](#):
>
> If Earhart’s Electra was/is on the island and readily visible from the air as TIGHAR believes it to be it almost assuredly would’ve been found long ago.
My thoughts exactly. I find it highly implausible that someone has thought her plane was exactly there and so far no one has gone for it. I think it will end up being a bid for funds.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/216 "2025-10-05T12:32:55Z")
Sand in shallow water is constantly shifting. So it’s (just barely) believable that an airplane-sized thing could sit on the bottom, then be buried enough to stay hidden, then later be re-exposed sitting on the bottom in more or less the condition it had been in when buried.
But those odds are real bad. While the odds of a money-grab and the opportunity for yet another few Discovery-like TV shows to breathlessly milk the credulous while finding nothing are very very good.
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### Author:  [@Caribbean\_cruiser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caribbean_cruiser)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/217 "2025-10-05T19:02:04Z")
TIGHAR’s track record of making bold claims yet delivering nothing of value from their many onsite visits suggests that the director of the program enjoys island life in the South Pacific. His group is perennially underfunded, understaffed, and ill-equipped to do a credible search of any island. What they need for a semi-definitive answer are the customary tools: side-scan sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles, sub-bottom profilers, marine magnetometers, drone-mounted LIDAR, ground-penetrating radar, hi-res satellite imagery, etc. He makes it sound like Nikumaroro Island is on the far side of the Moon. He simply isn’t equipped to do a serious archaeological search.
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### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/218 "2025-10-05T19:55:03Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> Sigh. I keep reading the title as: “Amelia Earhart’s phone found on the sea floor?”
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#):
>
> It’s only slightly less plausible at this point.
They didn’t have cellphnoes in those days.
So… Should be a lot easier to find. Just start by following the wire from the island.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2025, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amelia-earharts-plane-found-on-the-sea-floor/58693/219 "2025-10-05T22:21:36Z")
> [@Caribbean\_cruiser](#):
>
> TIGHAR’s track record of making bold claims yet delivering nothing of value from their many onsite visits suggests that the director of the program enjoys island life in the South Pacific.
Which, to be fair, is an assumption with a very high prior probability.
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