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It's one of the most enduring mysteries of our time: what happened to pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 as she attempted to fly around the world?
Four border collies named Berkeley, Piper, Marcy, and Kayle may have answers. On Wednesday, National Geographic reported that an expedition organized by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) will set sail from Fiji on Saturday, June 24, with the specially trained forensic dogs from the Institute for Canine Forensics along for the ride.
The mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart may be as close as it’s ever been to being solved https://t.co/Kqa1bGdu1c
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) June 21, 2017
The group's Earhart Project has spent decades testing the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed safely on Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) southeast of their intended landing spot, Howland Island. According to the project's website, the group believes Earhart and Noonan survived on the island for a time as castaways, catching and cooking small fish, seabirds, turtles and clams.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:17AM (1 child)
Given the ratio of land : sea in the area where she may have gone down, wouldn't they be better off going with bone-sniffing dolphins?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:32PM
Speaking of ratios, given the ratio of bone to metal or bone to all the other junk they had in the plane, you'd think they'd have better luck finding most anything other than bone.
Also island ecosystems "know" how to recycle bone so its possible there's nothing biological left, but something more elaborate like eyeglasses or navigation equipment is harder for crabs and seagulls to recycle. There should be rusting hulks of aircraft engines somewhere, etc.
I find it unlikely people trying to be rescued would treated it like a modern "leave no trace" national park. Of course "for a time" might mean like three days until they died of dehydration or wounds.